


meet me here, in the liminal spaces

by The_Ominous_Owl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AgentCorp, Angry Sex, F/F, Slow burn ish?, Smut, coping mechanisms of dubious efficacy, does it still count as slow burn if they fuck in the first chapter?, everyone needs a drink and a hug and some therapy, in that order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2019-10-21 08:45:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17639558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Ominous_Owl/pseuds/The_Ominous_Owl
Summary: Alex’s life has somehow become like that comic Winn showed her once, where the house was on fire but everything was fine, because somewhere along the way, between her sister leaving and the city descending into chaos in her absence, she and Lena had become the sort of friends who fucked in the darkness and didn’t talk about it.orthe one where alex and lena spiral downward together and surprise themselves by ending up somewhere better than either of them expected





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> whats that, owly with yet another wip? it's more likely than you think. i only sort of go here, but fuck if this story just wouldn't get out of my brain.
> 
> thanks to lostchips for looking it over and egging me on when i was feeling all self-doubty and whatnot.

**i.**

It starts like this, with Alex alone in her apartment, drinking straight from the bottle because there’s no one left to watch her disapprovingly. Kara’s gone, off on what remains of her planet with what remains of her people, and Alex’s faith that she’s coming back waxes and wanes with her mood. Kara’s never been more than a phone call away, and Alex hadn’t realised how much she relied on that until she was too far for anything more than a slightly garbled, one-way message every couple of months.

Losing Kara alone would’ve been hard enough, but Alex was also struggling to fill the holes left by Winn and J’onn. She couldn’t begrudge either of them the journeys they were on, but their near-simultaneous departures left Alex alone, coping with an abandonment complex she hadn’t realised she had. Even Sam had disappeared back to Metropolis in the wake of Reign, taking with her the aching sense of _potential_ that Alex had barely begun to acknowledge before it was gone.

Kara, J’onn, Winn, Sam, and in one fell swoop, Alex lost almost eighty percent of her support network.

All of which cumulates in Alex laying sprawled on her couch, rolling an empty bottle between her hands and debating if it was worth standing to retrieve a fresh one from the kitchen. She’s somewhere between buzzed and comfortably numb, and she’s leaning towards just letting herself drift off to sleep when her phone chimes loudly from the coffee table.

She almost ignores it. Her agents know to call her if it’s important, and there’s nobody else on this side of the galaxy that Alex wants to hear from. She lets her eyes drift closed again as the screen fades into darkness, and she’s most of the way to asleep when it beeps again.

Groaning, Alex gives in and rolls over, letting the bottle in her hands roll onto the floor and reaching for her phone. She squints when the light from the screen hits her face, painfully bright after the darkness, and waits for her eyes to adjust enough to see the screen.

_Hey._

_You awake?_

It’s from James, which isn’t unusual. He’s taken to checking in with her every few days, and Alex has a sneaking suspicion that Kara’s responsible. Alex mostly humours him, aware of the lengths most of Kara’s friends will go to in order to avoid disappointing her, but tonight she’s tempted to let it go unanswered. The niceties of social interaction feel beyond her, and it’s close enough to midnight that she doesn’t think he’ll question it.

It is odd that he’s contacting her this late, though. His messages usually fit around his schedule, a quick check-in at lunch time or as he’s leaving work. This is well outside his normal hours, and it’s just strange enough to push Alex into responding.

_Yeah._

Alex waits, but her screen goes dark before he replies. She lets the hand holding her phone drop onto her chest and closes her eyes, and she’s close enough to sleep to be jolted when it chimes and vibrates against her sternum.

James’s new message is long and rambling enough that she has to scroll to read all of it, and she squints at it for almost a minute before she gives up trying to make her eyes focus long enough to parse the words and just calls him.

_“Alex?”_

“What’s the problem?”

_“Are you drunk?”_

Yes. “No.”

_“Alex, it’s not urgent, I’ll just—”_

“It’s something about Lena.” She’d picked out her name enough times to realise that much. “Do I need to wake up my tac team?”

_“No! No, it’s nothing like that. I just…”_ He trails off, but when Alex makes an impatient noise, he launches into an explanation that’s only slightly less rambling that his text. Alex only gets the gist – something about a fight, and a break-up, and Lena now into day five of radio silence – but by the time he stops talking she’s worked out what he wants.

“You want me to check on her.”

_“You sound like you’re busy, don’t worry about it, I’ll find her.”_

‘Busy’ isn’t the word he wanted to use. Alex can tell from the slight hesitation when he says it, but she doesn’t have the energy to pick a fight about it. She does roll her eyes, and makes sure he can it in her tone. “No you won’t, not if she’s avoiding you. I’ll find her.”

The last thing Alex wants to do right now is stand up, let alone leave her apartment, but Lena is Kara’s best friend. If something happened to her on Alex’s watch, Kara would never forgive her.

James lets out a long breath that hisses over the line. _“Fine, just… Don’t drive.”_

**_…_ **

Alex doesn’t drive. She calls a cab, and ignores the side-eye the driver shoots her when she recites the address from her phone screen. It’s in a part of the city she’s almost totally unfamiliar with, but according to the very helpful and only moderately illegal piece of software Winn had given her before he left, Lena’s been there for at least a couple of hours.

When they pull up in front of the building, Alex is surprised. It’s not what she’d call a dive, particularly in comparison to some of the places she’s found herself in the past, but it’s definitely not the sort of establishment she’d expect to find Lena Luthor in. There’s a bouncer on the door, and he’s eyeing Alex like he’s trying to decide how much trouble it would be to stop her. She’s come prepared though, and brushes past him with a quick flash of her DEO badge, altered to resemble an ATF identification, and he lets her go without comment.

Inside is less shabby than it appears from the outside, though that could be down to the pulsing lights and music that’s just loud enough to distort Alex’s already-muddled senses. The club is packed with enough people that picking out any one individual is difficult, and Alex spends a good ten minutes prowling the edges of the crowd, searching for Lena in the mass of bodies, before she spots the narrow flight of stairs tucked in the back corner of the room.

Upstairs is quieter, with only the echo the pounding bass and the hint of a melody from the club. The room is just as dimly lit, but it’s closer to a soft, firelight glow than the strobing light of the dancefloor. It takes Alex a second to adjust to the difference in atmosphere, but when she does, she realises that she’s in a bar that reminds her strongly of the places the med students with trust funds used to drag her classmates to when they wanted to wallow in their existential nihilism.

There are far fewer people up here, and it doesn’t take long for Alex to pick Lena’s form out, even in the low light. She’s slouched at the far end of the bar with a whole flight of empty shot glasses in front of her, and the bartender is leaning close enough to her as he refills her tumbler that Alex feels her hackles raise instinctively. He eyes her as she approaches them, trying to stake his claim with his expression, but Alex just glares at him until she’s close enough to touch Lena on the shoulder.

Lena twitches and stiffens at the contact, but after a second of blinking up at Alex warily, she relaxes.

“Agent Danvers,” Lena murmurs, surprised, and the bartender scowls and moves away. “I didn’t know you came here.”

“I don’t,” Alex says, trying to gauge how many of the shots Lena’s taken and how many are in the small puddle at the foot of her stool. The bartender’s attempts to get her drunk were apparently less successful than he’d thought, though judging by the way her vowels are running together, she’d swallowed at least a few.

Lena frowns in confusion. “Then why…James sent you,” she says, something like disappointment flashing across her face before her eyes narrow. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Then consider me your escort home,” Alex says, trying and failing to keep her irritation out of her tone. She’s not in the mood to deal with a belligerent Luthor, but judging from her expression, Lena isn’t going to make this process easy.

“One of the many upsides to a break-up is that I don’t have to deal with someone hovering over me,” Lena says, turning back toward the bar and taking a sip of her drink. Her glass is generously full, and Alex takes a second to glare at the bartender again, wondering idly how much trouble she’d have justifying herself if she arrested him for being a creep.

“One of the upsides of dragging me out of my apartment at midnight is that I don’t care,” Alex shoots back. “It’s time to go.”

“Not until I’ve finished my drink,” Lena says, gesturing with her over-full glass and somehow managing not to spill any of it.

Alex grits her teeth and reaches forward to pluck the drink from her hand, ignoring Lena’s noise of protest, and downs it in one go. It burns in her throat the way only expensive liquor can, and Alex regrets it for a moment when it hits her stomach and mixes with the cheap scotch already there. She drops the glass back onto the bar with a thunk, and turns back to Lena to find her looking at her with hooded eyes. Her expression ignites a swirl of heat low in Alex’s stomach that has nothing to do with the alcohol settling there, but before she can explore whatever _that_ is, Lena speaks.

“Why do you care?”

“Kara asked me—”

“Kara’s not here,” Lena snaps, angry, and Alex feels the thrill of something inside her rising to meet her.

“I know that,” Alex hisses, aware of the looks they’re getting from the other patrons. “I also know that before she left, she asked me to keep her friends out of trouble. I thought she meant keeping an eye on James when he goes running around in his stupid metal suit, but it turns out it also covers dragging you out of rich-people dive bars when I should be home in bed.” Home passed out on the couch was closer to the truth, but Lena didn’t need to know that part.

“Yes, I’m sure you need to be well rested to run your government black site.”

“Oh, don’t start Ms Corporate Billionaire. We still haven’t spoken about that kryptonian-proof lab you just _happened_ to have when Sam needed it.”

Lena’s eyes narrow, but instead of responding, she picks up her now-empty glass and waves it in the general direction of the bartender, who’d been subtly inching closer. He perks up at the unspoken command, but freezes when Alex catches Lena’s wrist and shoots him the most intimidating glare she can manage.

“No, she’s done. Is she paid up?” Alex asks, her expression daring him to lie, and he nods, avoiding her gaze.

“She has a regular tab,” he says, and Alex smiles viciously.

“Outstanding. We’re leaving.” She tugs on Lena’s arm, fully prepared to drag her outside if she had to, but the expected resistance never comes. Instead, Lena slides pliantly off the barstool, only stumbling slightly as she finds her balance, then starts towards the stairs, towing Alex behind her. The dress she’s wearing is surprisingly revealing, leaving enough uncovered that Alex can tell she’s not wearing a bra under it, and she wonders if Lena changed specifically to come out or if that’s just what passes for corporate wear at L-Corp.

Outside, the air is cold enough to be bracing, and Alex tilts her head back takes a deep breath, trying to clear the fog from her brain. She opens her eyes and catches herself looking for Rao’s pale glow in the sky, which only serves to make her sad and angry all over again. Looking down, she realises with a start that Lena has moved away from her, towards a car parked on the far side of the road.

Alex hurries to catch up with her, grabbing at her arm clumsily. Lena’s skin is warm in her hand, and it distracts Alex long enough that Lena turns to look at her with a frown.

“What the hell, Lena, you’re not driving,” Alex says, but Lena just rolls her eyes.

“Of course not,” she says, pointing towards the driver’s seat, and Alex realises that there’s already somebody sitting there.

“You made your driver wait for you?”

“I pay him very well,” Lena says as the driver notices them and opens the door cautiously.

“Ms Luthor?” the driver asks, looking Alex and the hand she still has wrapped around Lena’s bicep, but Lena waves away his fears.

“It’s fine, George. Agent Danvers is coming with me,” she says, eyes dark and challenging. “Who knows where I’ll end up without you there to watch me,” she adds, and Alex finds herself slipping down into the back seat, sliding in beside Lena as the driver shuts the door behind her.

**…**

The drive to Lena’s apartment is silent, but Alex looks over more than once to see Lena watching her with glittering eyes. Alex is firmly in what-the-hell-am-I-doing territory, but she’s feeling drunk and angry and wild, more than she has since she crashed and burned out of med school, and there’s something in Lena gaze that’s tugging at the reckless parts of her that leap off buildings in the middle of a firefight and pick fights with aliens twice her size.

Alex isn’t sure if her sense of time is as fuzzy as the rest of her or if Lena’s driver is secretly a wizard, but either way, it only feels like minutes before they’re pulling up in front of Lena’s apartment building. It’s only a couple of blocks over from the L-Corp building, and surprisingly close to the DEO headquarters Alex notes with distant curiosity until she realises that the door is open and Lena is sliding away from her.

Lena doesn’t say anything as she gets out of the car, just looks over her shoulder with a challenging smirk that Alex is annoyed to realise she finds attractive. She knows she should leave; her apartment is within walking distance, and she’s fulfilled at least the letter of her promise to Kara. But her sister is annoyingly all about the spirit of things, and there’s something magnetic about the way Lena is looking at her.

Lena doesn’t wait for her to make a decision, but after a moment of consideration, Alex slides out past a professionally blank-faced George and catches up to Lena before she’s passed the doorman.

The elevator ride up is as silent as the drive over had been, and the sense of unseen movement in the mirrored box is messing with Alex’s balance more than usual. When they finally reach Lena’s floor – the penthouse, judging from how long the trip takes – Lena steps out and taps a code into the pinpad nestled discreetly next to the only other visible door. Alex follows her in a haze, her reasons for being here feeling fuzzy and indistinct until she realises that Lena’s kicked her heels off and is heading for a shelf that holds several expensive-looking bottles of various shades of amber.

“I think you’ve had enough for tonight,” Alex tells her, crossing the room quickly and catching Lena’s wrist as she reaches for the closest bottle. The move leaves them pressed together, close enough that Alex can see the places Lena’s lipstick has been rubbed away and reapplied, but Lena makes no move to shift away from her. The apartment is lit only by the reflected glow of the city outside the windows, and Lena’s eyes are sparkling dangerously in the dimness.

“You’ve delivered me safely home, Alex,” Lena tells her, drawing out the syllables of her name mockingly. “Unless you plan on drinking everything on this shelf before I can, your services are no longer required.”

“Yes, because I’m definitely gonna leave you here to drink yourself into a coma. That absolutely won’t earn me a lecture from Kara when she gets back.”

“Kara. Isn’t. Here. If she wanted me to give a fuck about what she wants, she should’ve stayed where I could see her,” Lena says, her eyes betraying more emotions that her tone would suggest, and if Alex wasn’t set on giving in to her more destructive impulses tonight, she might have offered her comfort. But as it is, comfort feels far out of her reach, so she settles for the next best thing.

“Self-pity’s a terrible look on you, Luthor,” Alex says, motioning vaguely to their luxurious surroundings, and Lena’s eyes light with angry fire.

“Oh fuck off, Alex,” Lena spits, curling her hands into the lapel of Alex’s jacket and pulling her forward.

And then Lena’s kissing her. Or she’s kissing Lena – Alex isn’t really clear on the sequence of events. All she knows is that Lena is in her space, hot and forceful and angry, and Alex is meeting her with equal fire. Lena sinks her teeth into Alex’s lower lip, grinning when Alex moans, then runs her tongue over the indents in her skin before trailing her lips up along Alex’s jaw.

“If you want me to stop,” Lena breathes into her ear, nipping at the lobe just hard enough to sting, “say _Krypton_.”

And Alex should. There are so many reasons this is a terrible idea, not least of which is Lena’s choice of safe word, which Alex really should ask about. But she doesn’t, instead just digging her nails into Lena’s skin and relishing the soft curse Lena hisses against her ear before she brings their lips back together in a searing kiss.

Lena pulls her deeper into the apartment, walking backwards with the confidence of familiarity until her back hits the solid wood of a door. Alex pins her there with her body, pushing her knee up between her legs as Lena moans and scrabbles for the handle with the hand that isn’t tangled in Alex’s hair. Even through the fabric of her jeans, Alex can feel how wet Lena is, and it makes her grin as she locks her teeth around the muscle of her shoulder, pressing an imprint into her skin until Lena gets the door open and they stumble together into her bedroom.

Halfway to the bed they stop, giving Lena the chance to push Alex’s jacket off her shoulders and strip her shirt off. Alex lets it drop to the floor then paws at Lena’s dress, looking for the fastening, and she’s on the verge of simply tearing it off her when Lena guides her hands to the hidden zipper. Once loosened, the dress slides down her body like liquid to pool at her feet, leaving Lena naked except for her panties. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, and if Alex had been in a better state of mind, she probably would’ve paused for a moment to appreciate that.

But Alex isn’t in a better state of mind, so instead she just drops her mouth to the newly-exposed flesh, sucking a bruise into the skin just above her nipple as Lena arches against her. Alex’s hand is palming roughly at her other breast, but when her fingers dig in slightly too hard, Lena hisses and pulls on her hair to guide her head back up to her throat.

“Is this what Kara meant about looking after me?” Lena asks, her voice low and breathless, and Alex bites down on the skin under her mouth until a guttural moan tears out of Lena’s throat. She doesn’t want to think about her sister right now.

“Shut up,” Alex growls, shoving her down onto the bed then climbing after her, straddling her hips and pressing her down with her body. Starting at her lips, Alex works her way slowly downward, licking and biting a trail on her skin until she’s mouthing at the elastic of her underwear. They’re flimsy, lacey things, and Alex gives in to her earlier impulse and just tears them off Lena’s body, leaving thin scratch marks over her hips. Lena arches up off the mattress, searching blindly for any source of friction, but Alex pushes her back down, digging her nails into the soft skin of her thighs and leaving little crescent-shaped indents behind.

“Fuck, Alex, _please,_ ” Lena pants, clenching her hand painfully in Alex’s hair and writhing desperately. There’s something intoxicating about having someone as powerful as Lena Luthor underneath her, naked and breathless and begging for release, but Alex doesn’t have the patience to savour it for long, letting Lena tug her mouth down to her centre. She scrapes her teeth over Lena’s clit, pinning her hips to the bed when they try to buck upwards at the sensation, then alternates between her teeth and her tongue until Lena screams her name and spasms against her.

It takes Lena a minute to come back to herself, but when she does, she tugs Alex back up until they’re face-to-face and then flips them, planting her knee on either side of her hips. A predatory smile creeps onto her face, and she rakes her nails down Alex’s torso until she gets to the waistband of her jeans.

“These off. Now,” she husks, dragging her teeth across Alex’s pulse point as she fumbles with her zipper. Once it comes loose, she shoves Alex’s jeans and underwear down together, getting them down around her calves before leaving them for Alex to kick off. She doesn’t resume her perch on Alex’s hips, instead stretching herself out to lay beside her, trapping one of Alex’s arms under her body. She scrapes her nails down Alex’s abdomen again, and Alex hisses at the sting when she presses hard enough to break the skin.

Lena’s hand lingers when it gets to the apex of Alex’s thighs, and she lets it slide down between her legs, reducing the pressure of her nails until it’s barely there. Alex’s hips roll up involuntarily, and she makes a low keening sound in the back of her throat. She feels Lena’s answering grin against her neck, and her hand slides lower, brushing lightly over her clit and continuing.

Alex makes a noise that starts as Lena’s name and trails off into a moan, and Lena slips two fingers inside her with no warning, letting Alex’s hips buck upward before angling her hand so she can trace little circles around her clit with her thumb as she thrusts, keeping the pressure just shy of where Alex needs it to be. Lena intercepts the hand that’s not trapped under her body with her free one and pins it to the mattress above Alex’s head, leaving her no way to relieve the building ache until Lena allows it.

“Beg me,” Lena whispers, running her tongue along the shell of her ear, but Alex just arches her back up off the mattress, desperate for friction but refusing to ask for it. Lena trails her lips down to her neck, licking the sweat off her skin, and nips at the straining muscle.

“ _Beg me,_ ” Lena growls, adding a third finger and increasing the rhythm of her thrusts, and Alex breaks.

“Fuck me, Lena, please, fuck, Lena,” she gasps, her voice trailing off until she’s just panting Lena’s name over and over, and Lena shifts her thumb to press against her clit at the same moment she bites down hard on her shoulder. The twinned sensation of pleasure and sharp pain is more than enough, and her vision explodes with stars as she plummets over the edge.

When her awareness returns, the first thing she sees is Lena licking the moisture off her hand. It’s an almost unbearably erotic sight, but when Lena sees her watching, she stops and sits up, shifting until she’s straddling Alex’s hips again.

“Don’t fall asleep. I’m not even close to done with you, yet,” she purrs, shoving Alex’s bra up so she can mouth at her breasts as Alex’s hands run down her back to knead at her ass.

…

Later, when the sun is just peeking in through the window and they’re both sprawled beside each other, spent and sporting a matching constellation of bruises and bitemarks, Alex lets reality creep back into her brain. She’s no less angry, no less sad, and now there’s an added sprinkling of guilt to go with it. Lena is passed out beside her and Alex’s body longs to do the same, but she fights it, instead edging over until she can slip out of the bed. She gathers her clothes quietly and heads for the door, leaving Lena and the evidence of her terrible decision-making behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yup, that happened. sorry? there's more coming.
> 
> my supercorp wips will continue once i've got this out of my system, i swear.
> 
> i've never published smut before, someone tell me it's not terrible,


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guysss <3\. the response to this fic has been awesome, thanks to everyone who commenting and kudosing and whatnot. y'all are amazing.
> 
> i should admit that i haven't actually seen season 4, and i only sort of vaguely watched the end of season 3. if i mess up details, my bad.

**ii.**

Then it goes like this, with Alex aching and guilt-ridden and avoiding Lena at all costs. Her message to James in the morning says only that she’d found Lena alive and well, and makes no mention of the night they’d spent taking their anger out on each other in bruising, carnal ways. The marks on her skin take days to fade, and Alex is glad her uniform has both long sleeves and a high collar, saving her from having to explain the bruises on her arms or the teeth marks on her collarbone.

Less quick to fade are the memories, and for the first time since he left, Alex finds herself grateful that she’s not seeing J’onn every day. For all his assurances that he didn’t deliberately read minds without consent, the memory of the strap-on chafing at her hips as Lena perched on top of her, riding her wantonly and digging her fingers so hard into Alex’s skin that her nails came away tipped with blood feels like the sort thing that she’d project without meaning to. The lingering awareness of what they’d done is like a persistent buzz in Alex’s consciousness that floats back up to the surface if she doesn’t distract herself, and she finds her mind wandering back to that night at the most inconvenient of times.

It's not like Alex has nothing else to focus on. There’s been a sharp uptick in what the press was referring to as ‘alien-involved crime’ recently, and an increase in anti-alien sentiment in the general public in response. That the aliens involved in the crimes are more often victims than perpetrators was apparently an insignificant detail as far as the pundits are concerned, but it’s reaching the point where protests both for and against alien habitation of earth are being planned.

In the wake of the tension, the DEO is more often finding itself acting as a peacekeeping force between the two sides, an increasingly difficult task as the city begins to notice Supergirl’s absence. It’s a bad time to lose the poster girl for inter-species cooperation, and Alex isn’t convinced that the timing is accidental. Kara has been away long enough that people are starting to wonder where she’s gone, and both sides are claiming her silence on the matter is in favour of them.

All of which means Alex really shouldn’t be thinking about Lena Luthor’s smooth skin and how cathartic it had been to sink her teeth into it. She throws herself into her work, sparring with the new recruits until they don’t have the energy to complain about it and badgering the analysts until Brainy politely shepherds her out of the ops centre. She works until she’s too exhausted to miss her sister or dwell on the single, unopened message from Lena in her inbox, and then she goes home and drinks until she can sleep without dreaming.

Then, in the midst of a protest turned violent, they catch three humans smuggling kryptonite in boxes branded with L-Corp’s logo and avoiding Lena becomes impossible.

**…**

“It’s not mine,” is the first thing Lena says when Alex storms into her office, furious and trailing an apologetic Jess. Alex finds that she’s not surprised that Lena knows why she’s there, but makes a mental note to have Brainy look over their system for a leak when she gets back to the office.

“It has your name on it,” Alex says through clenched teeth, stopping just short of her desk. “I thought we had an understanding about this.”

“It’s fine, Jess,” Lena says, looking past her, and Alex glances over her shoulder to see that the assistant has her hand hovering over what she assumes is a panic button. “Cancel my next meeting, please.”

Jess leaves reluctantly, shooting Alex a glare as she closes the door behind her, and Alex turns her attention back to Lena.

“If by ‘an understanding’, you mean that an organisation that doesn’t officially exist gave me an order I’m under no obligation to follow, then yes,” Lena says, leaning back in her chair and watching Alex impassively, though her fingers are curled tightly around the armrests of her chair. “Fortunately for you, I keep my promises, which is why you can believe me when I tell you that the kryptonite you found _isn’t mine_.”

“It _has your name on it_ ,” Alex says again, stepping forward so she’s close enough to lean over the desk and lower her voice. “Your name, and three guys in my holding cell who swear blind that they work for you.”

“Then someone’s obviously setting me up,” Lena says, tilting her head defiantly, and Alex is struck by the sudden, vivid memory of biting at the tendon in her neck as Lena raked her nails down her back. The rush of _want_ that races down her spine to settle low in her stomach is both unexpected and distracting, and it takes her a moment to realise that Lena’s still talking. “I thought you of all people would be smart enough to see that.”

“I’m smart enough to know that you’re the only person on the planet who’s ever successfully synthesised it, and that when you did, you lied about it,” Alex says, and Lena’s carefully blank mask slips just a bit.

“That’s not fair,” Lena spits. “You don’t know if what you have _is_ synthetic kryptonite, and even if it is, I could give you half a dozen names of people who are working on making their own anti-kryptonian technology and being a lot less open with you about it than I was.”

“Less open? We had to physically catch you with the stuff before you admitted to having it!” Alex snaps, and Lena pushes herself to her feet and plants her hand on the desk. She’s close enough now that Alex can see how dark her eyes have become and the little flutter at her pulse point that Alex wants to run her teeth over.

“If I’d told you I was making it, you would’ve asked why. I was protecting my friend from being hauled off to some government lab somewhere.”

“Yes, much better that you hauled her off to your private one.”

“Sam trusted me to help her. Kara said you understood that.”

“Kara isn’t here,” Alex says through gritted teeth, trying to keep her focus on the argument and not the rapid rise and fall of Lena’s chest.

“If she was, she’d be pointing out that I’ve done everything I can to help you, even when it cost me,” Lena says, leaning forward, and Alex realises distantly that they’re now too close for this to end well, “and if you think I’ll let this slide just because I let you _fuck_ me—”

And that’s all it takes. The explicit acknowledgement of that night combined with the curse rolling off Lena’s tongue is enough to snap the tenuous thread of self-control holding Alex back. She reaches forward across the desk and pulls Lena roughly towards her, ignoring her gasp of surprise and bringing their mouths together in a searing, open-mouthed kiss. Lena responds instantly, digging her nails into Alex’s shoulder to keep her in place until the desk shifts under their weight. Even then, she only pushes Alex away long enough to get around it, then she’s back in her space, tugging her forward and curling a hand tightly into her hair.

“Should we…here?” Alex asks, but Lena just bites on her lip and slides a hand up under her shirt to squeeze her breast.

“Yes,” she growls, sounding sure, so Alex gives in and lets Lena guide her backwards, not towards the couch as she’d expected, but up against a wall in the corner of the office.

“No cameras,” Lena says breathlessly when Alex makes a questioning noise, and Alex finds the notion of them being watched bothers her less than she thought it would. It certainly doesn’t bother her enough to stop, and when she hits the wall with a huff she flips them, trapping Lena’s wrists between her body and the wall with one hand and palming her breast roughly through her shirt with the other. The noise Lena makes is somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and she lets her head fall backward as Alex works her way along her jaw. The movement exposes more of her throat, and Alex takes advantage, dipping lower and giving into her desire to scrape her teeth over her pulse point roughly until Lena twitches away.

“Not there,” Lena says, her voice too breathless to be commanding, but Alex obeys, working the buttons of her blouse free with one hand until her breasts are uncovered. She moves her mouth down to the edge of her bra, sucking a bruise into the pale skin there as Lena writhes and tries to tug her arms free of Alex’s grasp. A brief glance up at her face tells Alex it’s not a serious attempt to escape, so she just tightens her grip and returns her attention to Lena’s skin. She tugs the cup of her bra down and mouths at the newly exposed skin, pinching a sensitive nipple between her teeth as Lena moans her name.

“Quiet,” Alex hisses, covering Lena’s mouth with her free hand. “Your assistant will call security if she hears you, and wouldn’t _that_ be an awkward conversation.”

Lena smirks under her hand, and instead of replying, uses her tongue to pull one of Alex’s fingers into her mouth. Alex has to muffle her own moan at the sensation, and when Lena bites down just hard enough to leave a ring of teeth marks around the digit, she gasps and breathes a curse into Lena’s ear.

“ _Quiet_ ,” Lena whispers with a mocking smile. Alex growls and captures her lips in another bruising kiss as she trails her hand down Lena’s body until she reaches the hem of her skirt. She yanks it upward, over the curve of Lena’s ass, and Lena takes advantage of the freedom, hiking one of her legs up around Alex’s hip and pulling her closer. Alex takes a moment to knead the uncovered skin, digging her nails in and making Lena moan and buck against her, then moves her hand around to slip between their bodies, sliding under the elastic of Lena’s underwear.

Lena cries out when Alex’s fingers slip inside her, but she buries her head in Alex’s neck, muffling the sound by biting down on her shoulder with enough force to bruise, even through her shirt. She’s wet enough that it’s trickling down Alex’s wrist to soak into her pants, and her hips undulate against Alex’s, matching the rhythm of her thrusts. There’s a soft keening noise tearing out of her throat, high and needy, that increases in pitch and volume until she bucks and spasms against Alex’s body. Alex hisses in her ear, swallowing her own cry when the pressure on her shoulder goes from a bruising ache to actual pain as Lena rides out her climax.

Eventually Lena sags against her, boneless, and Alex is forced to release her hands to keep her upright. She holds her as her breathing slows, but it’s not until her leg uncurls from Alex’s hip that Alex realises her fingers are still buried inside her. She withdraws her hand slowly, finding it coated with the evidence of Lena’s arousal, and considers it for a moment before bringing it to her mouth, licking the moisture from her fingers while Lena watches her with pupils blown wide with lust.

It takes Lena a moment to realise that her hands are free, but when she does, she wastes no time in yanking Alex against her, pulling her into a kiss that’s just an excuse to bite at her lip as her hands rake down her body. She paws at Alex’s breasts roughly before continuing downward, slipping her hands up under her shirt to so she can drag her nails across Alex’s abs. Alex hisses at the sting and lets her hands drop to the curve of Lena’s ass, digging her fingers into the flesh there hard enough to leave crescent shaped indents in her skin.

Lena’s hands drop to her belt, fumbling with the buckle until it gives and she can shove Alex’s pants down over her hips. The holster strapped to her leg stops her from removing them completely, and she tugs at it for a moment with her teeth bared until Alex reaches down to unclip it, letting it ease down her leg until she can push it out of easy reach with her foot. Obstruction dealt with, Lena slides down the wall to land on her knees, pushing Alex’s pants down around her ankles as she goes then digging her nails into the soft flesh of Alex’s inner thighs. Alex is forced to cover her own mouth with a hand that still smells like Lena to stifle her moans when Lena leans in, alternating between licking, sucking, and biting, working her way slowly higher until Alex’s free hand shoots down to tangle in her hair, pulling her mouth up to her dripping centre.

The moment Lena’s tongue touches her clit, Alex is forced to brace herself on the wall with the hand not clenched in Lena’s hair. Lena wastes no time with teasing, licking her in quick, determined strokes as her fingers dig into the flesh of her thighs. Alex comes quickly, forcing down the cry that tears at her throat as her legs turn to jelly and her muscles clench and release. Lena’s tongue keeps working, easing her through her orgasm until Alex tugs her away with the hand wound through her hair. She can still feel Lena’s every exhale against her skin, but she doesn’t have enough control over herself yet to move away.

Instead, she leans forward, resting her head on her arm against the wall as she gets her breathing back under control, and after a moment she looks down to see Lena watching her with dark eyes. Her mouth and chin are glistening with saliva and come, and Alex’s thighs are smeared with the remains of her makeup, to the point where she can’t tell where the lipstick stops and the incipient bruises begin.

Alex untangles her hand from her hair and offers it to Lena, pulling her back to her feet. Lena pauses to wipe her face on Alex’s shirt on the way up, and between that and the stain she’d dripped onto her pants earlier, Alex is sure she’s going to need the spare uniform she keeps in her car.

Once they’re back at eye level, Alex realises she doesn’t know where to look. Her frustration hasn’t faded, but it feels far off and detached, and in the wake of whatever it was that came after it, standing so close to Lena feels far too much like intimacy. The office is silent but for their breathing and the distant sounds of the city, and Lena is still watching her with an inscrutable expression.

Desperate for distance, Alex takes a shuffled step backwards, stooping to drag her pants back up her legs and wincing at the sting of the deeper scratches Lena inflicted. Lena waits for her to straighten before shoving herself off the wall, working her skirt back down her thighs then moving past her to collapse down onto the couch, apparently unbothered that her shirt is still gaping open. Alex fixes her belt and retrieves her gun before joining her, sinking down just outside Lena’s personal space. The sunlight outside is fading, giving way to the artificial light of night time in the city, and Alex realises with a sort of distant alarm that she’s been there too long.

“I still have to investigate the kryptonite,” Alex says to the office in general, unable to force herself to look at the woman beside her. It’s dark enough outside that the window is reflecting the vague shapes in the room, and if she tries, Alex can see them, two faceless figures close enough to touch but sitting carefully, deliberately apart.

“I know,” Lena murmurs after a long pause, her voice unreadable.

“If it is yours…”

“It isn’t.”

“I know,” Alex says softly. There’s a muted news report playing on one of the screens on the wall, showing coverage of the protests earlier in the day. The footage is of humans and aliens attacking each other in the streets, overlayed with a picture of her sister’s face and banner in the lower third reading “Where is Supergirl?”, and Alex stares at it until her eyes burn.

“This can’t keep happening,” Alex says, striving to sound more certain than she feels, and the faceless reflection turns its head to face her.

“Do you want it to?” Lena asks, her voice low and filled with subtext, and Alex finally looks at her and regrets it instantly. Her shirt is open to her stomach, revealing the inkblot of bruises across her chest, and her hair is tangled with the memory of Alex’s hand buried there. Her eyes are dark and unfathomable, and something in her gaze is tugging at the reckless, unfettered thing that sits in Alex’s chest and makes all her worst choices.

“I…” Kara’s face is staring at her from the screen again, and Alex can’t remember craving a drink more desperately than she does now. “I just…I have to go.”

Alex pushes herself off the couch, feeling Lena’s eyes on her back as she retreats from the office, passing Jess’s desk without acknowledging the look the assistant shoots her. It’s not until she’s in the mirrored elevator that she realises how thoroughly fucked she looks, hair messy and clothes rumpled, and she makes a half-hearted attempt to fix it until the doors open with a soft chime.

Once she’s safely back in her car, she sends a message to Vasquez, feigning illness and telling her she’s heading home. It’s close enough to the end of the traditional work day that she doesn’t think she’ll question it too much. Then she drives to her apartment and curls on her couch and drinks until she’s numb.

**…**

It takes days, but eventually they trace the kryptonite back to a former L-Corp employee with a grudge and enough leftover access to cause trouble. His plan is bizarre and disjointed; he has no firm answer for where he actually got the kryptonite, and Alex knows ten minutes into talking to him that he’s a patsy and someone else was ultimately pulling the strings. She doesn’t have enough push him with, though, and he’s just deranged enough to want all the credit, so after almost nine hours of interrogation, she lets it drop, frustrated but out of options.

She sends an agent to Lena’s office with the news, achingly aware of what had happened the last time she’d gone to see her when she was exhausted and angry. The marks are still smudged across her skin, and visible enough even under her uniform that she’s given up trying to hide them and simply tells anyone bold enough to ask that they’re sparring injuries. The agent returns quickly and says only that Ms Luthor didn’t really react other than to say she was pleased they caught him, and Alex forces Lena out of her brain for the rest of the day.

Later, after she’s fumbled her keys into the lock with fingers that are wrapped around the neck of a fresh bottle, she opens the door to her apartment and finds Lena waiting for her.

“I told you it wasn’t me,” Lena hisses, stalking towards her. “You sent an underling to tell me? What, were you afraid I was gonna say I told you so?” Then she’s in Alex’s space, breathing Alex’s air and sinking her teeth into Alex’s lip, and the bottle falls to the floor with a thunk and rolls away, forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realised i forgot to link [my tumblr](http://the-ominous-owl.tumblr.com) before. feel free to visit and wail into my inbox if the mood takes you. i have lots of Feelingz, i'll probably wail back.
> 
> also comment, i'll love you forever


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you guys <3 and i actually watched the latest episode and got smacked in the face with agentcorp feels and it turns out i go here now. so this is fun. (i still loves me some sc too, tho)
> 
> i should be sleeping and haven't proofread this but HERE HAVE FICWORDS cos i love y'all

**iii.**

After that, it goes like this, with Alex and Lena falling into something dangerously close to a habit. All it takes is one bad meeting to have Lena pushing her way into Alex’s apartment, pressing her against the wall and making her twist and scream against her; one bungled op or failed interrogation to have Alex sweeping into Lena’s office, taking her frustration out on her willing body. It’s addictive, the release they find with each other. The blissful numbness that comes after is comparable to the oblivion she can find in a bottle, minus the discomfort of a hangover in the morning, but Alex is still surprised how quickly Lena surpasses scotch as main vice. She’s the one spot of stillness in Alex’s increasingly chaotic life, like the eye of a hurricane, and Alex needs the reprieve enough that she refuses to let herself dwell on what that means.

It's not a relationship. There’s none of the nuance, the subtle communication, the myriad of tiny moments that Alex had with Maggie. What she and Lena have is a simple, straightforward thing, a bludgeon they use on each other until they’re both too spent to dwell on anything else. Lena doesn’t mention the nights she finds Alex alone and drunk in the dark of her apartment, Alex doesn’t mention the way she’s caught Lena living out of her office for days at a time. It’s not healthy, but it’s easy. Uncomplicated.

Until it isn’t.

**…**

After the first time in Lena’s office, Alex vows to herself that it wouldn’t happen there again. It’s too public, the risk of getting caught is too high, and they’re both functional adults with apartments and bedrooms and doors that locked. She doesn’t mention it to Lena, but she’s determined to keep their arrangement out of their respective workplaces.

She lasts less than two weeks.

Her resolve endures through worsening protests, increasingly violent attacks by the #earthfirst movement and corresponding reprisals, and a minor bomb scare that was far less minor than she let on to the baby reporter who’d scrounged her number up from somewhere to ask her about it. It endures all the way through a raid on an extremist hideout that ends with three of her agents in the medbay. It endures through the stockpiles they find there, the plans – _target the children, make them_ want _to leave_ – and the ravings of the men and women they arrest.

It breaks when she puts herself in the room with the twelve-year-old girl they’d found there, and she parrots the same vitriolic hate that her parents are spewing from the holding cell. She’s wearing a Supergirl shirt as she says it, ironic in a way that makes Alex’s heart hurt, and she leaves the DEO that night feeling lost and empty. She skips the turn-off to her apartment almost automatically, but she doesn’t fully register where she’s going until she’s badging her way past Lena’s security and staring at herself in the mirrored elevator. Lena doesn’t turn her away, just murmurs something about turning the cameras off before she pushes Alex towards the couch.

**…**

Since then, Alex has learned to interpret the looks Jess shoots her when she stalks past her into Lena’s office. She knows Lena’s assistant is aware of what they’re doing and wildly disapproves, but she’s loyal enough to Lena that, as far as Alex can tell, she hasn’t mentioned the arrangement to anyone else. Jess doesn’t try to hide her distaste for what happens when Alex visits, but the pair of them have come to a silent, mutual understanding. Alex won’t burst into Lena’s office if Jess stops her, and Jess won’t stop Alex unless she has an actual reason. Alex only wants to make Lena uncomfortable in very specific, physical ways, and interfering in her business or potentially damaging her reputation has no part of that.

It doesn’t stop Jess from glaring at Alex every time she sweeps past her desk, but Alex has learned to use the assistant’s reaction to her as a barometer for Lena’s mood. There’s the narrow-eyed glower of irritation that says that Lena’s been in and out of meetings all day and will let Alex do whatever she wants to her if it means she can stop talking for a while. The half an eye-roll that means that Lena is stressed and running behind schedule and will fuck her quick and ruthless and kick her out half-dressed. The eyes-down glance away that says Lena’s already in a terrible mood and will match any fire Alex brings, leaving both of them slumped, bruised and boneless on her couch. It’s not a perfect system, but it works, and Alex has begun to find Jess’s unfailing hostility towards her almost comforting.

So when Alex steps out of the elevator and is met not with the traditional scowl, but instead a look of pure relief, she’s instantly put on guard.

“Director Danvers,” Jess says, curt and professional, but her eyes lack any of their usual chill. “Ms Luthor’s in a meeting right now, but…” Her gaze flicks between Alex and the door, indecision all over her face, and Alex begins to regret not bringing her gun. Lena had asked her to stop wearing her uniform when she came to L-Corp, because – as much as she enjoyed peeling Alex out of it – having an agent in combat gear visit her office twice a week had begun to raise questions.

“Is she in trouble?” Alex asks, just barely clamping down on her immediate instinct to kick the door in. The thought of Lena being in danger is rapidly eclipsing the storm cloud of anger that had propelled her to visit L-Corp in the first place, and the only thing stopping her from bursting into the office is her training telling her to gather more information first.

“No, I don’t think so. Her guest asked that they not be disturbed, but…” Jess’s eyes slide to the door again, and Alex sees the moment she makes up her mind. “But if a _federal agent_ were to demand entry, there’s not much I could do to stop her,” she says, eyeing Alex pointedly.

It’s not exactly permission, but it’s close enough to have Alex turning and shoving her way through the door, ignoring the way Jess calls after her in a show of token resistance.

She has half a second to read the room before the occupants react. Lena is behind her desk, reclined regally in her chair. She looks relaxed and in control, but Alex has learned her tells well enough to see the tight muscles in her neck, the tension in her shoulders. She’s concealing it well, but she’s anxious. Her guest is seated on the other side of her desk, leaning forward and talking in a low, inviting tone, but he stops and jumps to his feet when the doors open.

He whirls to face Alex as she stalks into the room, but Alex doesn’t spare him a glance. Her eyes remain focused on Lena, searching for any reason to tackle the man now snarling at her, but finds nothing. She’s clearly surprised to see Alex, but while her mask remains in place, the tension in her shoulder leaks away instantly when she recognises her. She starts to say something, but her guest cuts her off.

“Who the hell are you?” he demands, starting towards Alex. He moves like he’s used to controlling any space he occupies, and his suit is expensive and screams businessman. There’s something about his face, a niggling familiarity in the back of Alex’s head, but she can’t place him.

“Special Agent Danvers, FBI,” Alex answers, demoting herself both in the name of expediency and not making Lena explain why she’s being visited by the director of an organisation that still doesn’t officially exist.

He scowls at her. “I believe I asked for privacy, Agent Danvers. You can wait outside.”

“I believe this isn’t your office. I need a word, Ms Luthor,” Alex says, looking deliberately past his shoulder and ignoring the way he bristles at her dismissal. Even though she’s apparently interrupted nothing more sinister than a normal business meeting, something about Lena’s subtle discomfort – coupled with Jess’s reaction to her arrival – has Alex’s instincts screaming at her to get this guy out of the office. She isn’t armed, but she can tell by the way he’s squaring up to her that he’s, at best, a brawler with some basic training. She’s confident that she wouldn’t have any trouble subduing him if she has to, but she’d prefer not to get any more blood on Lena’s carpet.

“You dare…” he starts, trying to loom over her, but Alex just stares him down, unflinching.

“I’m always happy to help, Agent Danvers,” Lena says, pulling their attention back to her and smoothly puncturing the incipient violence. Her guest flinches like he’d forgotten she was in the room, and Alex can see the way he struggles to fall back behind the façade of charismatic businessman when Lena addresses him. “I’m terribly sorry, Timothy, but we’ll have to cut this short.”

“Of course,” he says, smooth as an oil slick, wiping the snarl off his face as he turns back to Lena to offer her his hand. “We can continue our conversation later. Over drinks, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” Lena agrees, smiling thinly and clasping his hand as briefly as courtesy allowed. Her eyes flick briefly to Alex, but she’s got her mask back in place and Alex is too focused on resisting her strong urge to break ‘Timothy’s’ jaw to get a good read on her. He doesn’t spare Alex a glance as he leaves, but she glares at his back until the door swings shut behind him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Lena says from behind Alex, sounding far closer than she expected, and she turns just in time to see Lena stalking towards her, her eyes dark and hungry. Alex barely has time to register what she’s doing before her fingers are curled in the lapels of her jacket.

“What—” Alex starts, but she’s interrupted by the press of Lena’s lips on her own.

The kiss is desperate and bruising and filled with enough intent to drive all the questions from Alex’s tongue. Lena doesn’t stop moving when they come together, pushing Alex backwards until the back of her knees hit the couch and she falls. Lena follows her down, straddling Alex’s lap and sinking her teeth into her lip. The movement hikes her dress up her legs, and Alex’s hands go automatically to her thighs, sliding upward until they hit the fabric of her underwear.

“Lena…are you okay?” Alex asks between kisses, because Lena should be furious with her and she’s not. They’ve been doing this for long enough for Alex to know her moods, but this one is unfamiliar. She’s been fucked by a furious Lena Luthor before, been taken by her when she was gloriously, destructively angry, and this isn’t that. This Lena is clinging to her like she’s afraid Alex will vanish if she lets go, kissing her with a desperation that Alex can almost taste.

“I’m fine,” Lena says, moving her head until she can hiss into Alex’s ear. Alex knows she’s lying with a certainty she can’t explain, but Lena’s also nipping at her earlobe while her hand twists to the zipper of her dress, and Alex only has so much self-control. The blood rushes rapidly away from her brain as Lena wriggles her arms free and shoves her dress and bra down together until they’re bunched around her ribs, but she tries one last time.

“Lena…” she starts, but Lena winds her fingers tightly through her hair and tugs sharply.

“I’m. Fine,” she hisses, pushing Alex’s mouth down onto her skin, and Alex gives in. There’s a fading mark below her collarbone from the last time they did this, and Alex nips at it lightly, wringing a gasp from Lena’s throat before she continues down, licking a nipple into her mouth and pinching it between her teeth.

“ _Fuck_ , Alex…” Lena hisses, tightening her fingers in Alex’s hair until it’s almost painful. Her hips are rolling against Alex’s stomach, but Alex can tell from the little huffs of frustration in her ear that the pressure isn’t enough.

Finally, Lena moves with a growl, shifting so she’s straddling just one of Alex’s legs and pressing herself down until the wet heat of her centre soaks through Alex’s jeans. She gasps out Alex’s name as she undulates her hips, spreading the warmth along Alex’s leg, and Alex digs her fingers hard into her thighs, encouraging the movement. Lena’s knee is pushing up between her legs, pressing the seam of her jeans directly against her clit, and every tiny movement stokes the fire building in Alex’s stomach.

The couch creaks beneath them with every thrust, and Alex quickly devolves to simply mouthing at Lena’s skin aimlessly. Lena is breathing in quick, panted curses, and when Alex’s teeth scrape across a particularly sensitive spot, she pulls Alex’s head back sharply with the hand still tangled in her hair. Her other hand goes to Alex’s neck, squeezing just hard enough to feel the moan that vibrates out of her throat. She presses her open mouth to Alex’s jaw, breathing hotly against her skin, and Alex uses her grip on her thighs to pull her more firmly against her leg. Lena moans the first syllable of her name, high and needy and trailing off into a wordless whine, and the sound of it is just enough to push Alex over the edge. Lena keeps moving for a few more seconds before her fingers tighten on Alex’s throat as she spasms against Alex’s body with a restrained cry before collapsing heavily on top of her, boneless and pliant, letting her head fall to the crook of Alex’s neck.

Alex feels spent, overtaken by a sort of empty lethargy she’s learned to expect in the quiet moments with Lena, before either of them can move. The fabric between her legs is soaked beyond saving, and she’s going to have to do something about the rapidly drying stain Lena rubbed onto her thigh before she leaves, but for now, Alex just sinks into the silence, the rare still moment broken only by the sound of both of them catching their breath and her slowing heartbeat pulsing in her ears.

Eventually, she’s roused from her post-orgasmic haze by the vibration of Lena’s voice against her throat.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says again, like she hadn’t interrupted herself to fuck Alex on her couch. Her lips brush over Alex’s skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “He could make life difficult for you, if he works out who you actually work for.”

“Who is he? Jess hasn’t ever let me interrupt a meeting before,” Alex asks, and Lena sighs into her shoulder.

“Timothy Greyson, the face of the #earthfirst movement,” Lena answers, her voice tickling as it vibrates along Alex’s skin, and Alex realises with a start why he was so familiar. His face has been staring at her from the top of their suspect wall for almost a week now. He and the other ring-leaders for the anti-alien protests that they’d been able to identify have all wrapped themselves up in the First Amendment, and Alex isn’t allowed to just black-bag people anymore, fascist or otherwise, as sorely tempting as it was after what she’d just seen of him.

“Why was he here?”

Lena raises her head to meet Alex’s eye. “We met at the last charity gala I threw for the children’s hospital. He mentioned a proposition for me, and his donation was large enough to earn him a spot on my schedule. I invited him out of courtesy, not preference.”

“No, I didn’t mean…I meant what did he want?”

Lena huffs out a mirthless laugh and eases off Alex’s lap to slump beside her on the couch, and Alex forces herself not to notice the loss of her warmth. “What do you think? I’m the last free Luthor, he was here to recruit me into his crusade.”

“What did you tell him?” Alex asks, careful to keep her tone free of accusation. She’s slept with Lena’s teeth on her throat too many times to distrust her, but she’s never been able to totally silence the cynical little voice at the back of her mind that doubts everyone who isn’t Kara.

“I declined,” Lena says, eyeing Alex like she can read her mind. “Politely, the first few times, but he was quite insistent I meet with his ‘like-minded friends’.” Her eyes slide away from Alex, and she starts tugging her bra back up her chest as she speaks. “He thought I was playing coy, because apparently it’s unthinkable that a Luthor would find his cause repugnant. That a _Luthor_ would find the idea of killing people just because they’re different horrifying.”

Her face is blank, hidden behind the mask that Alex has seen so many times before, but this time she can see the fragility of it, the way it’s only barely in place. One strap of her bra is tangled with the sleeves of her dress, and she tugs at it futilely with sharp, jerky movements until Alex reaches over to catch her shaking hands.

“Hey,” she says softly, and Lena stills under her touch. “Forget him. He doesn’t know you.”

“No, just my reputation,” Lena says softly, smiling mirthlessly and blinking down at their joined hands. “Which led him to believe I’d help him commit genocide, because no matter what I do, the idea of a Luthor being a good person is unthinkable.”

Lena’s eyes are wet, and Alex’s heart is aching in a way it hasn’t since she watched the lights from Kara’s ship fade from the atmosphere. They don’t do this; there’s never been any post-coital talking before, but Alex watches Lena crumble in front of her and realises that maybe _this_ is what Kara meant when she asked Alex to look after her.

Kara’s always been good at the hopeful speeches, the easy inspiration that can bring around even the most hardened of cynics, but Kara isn’t here. There’s only Alex, who’s barely able to inspire herself to mediocrity of late. But Lena needs _someone_ , and Kara isn’t here.

“Well that’s bullshit,” Alex says sharply, and Lena’s eyes dart up to meet hers. There are faint tear-tracks through her make-up, revealing the dark circles under her eyes and making Alex wonder how long it’s been since she actually slept. “Good people are a myth, Lena. There’s no such thing. The measure of a person is in their actions, and your actions more than speak for themselves.”

“Alex, I…” Lena starts, but Alex cuts her off.

“No, screw that guy. You do good things, Lena Luthor. You do good things for good reasons, and if that idiot fascist can’t see that it’s a fault in him, not you.”

Lena is looking at her with wide, wet eyes, and Alex blinks and looks down at her lap, feeling self-conscious.

“Alex…” Lena says softly, squeezing her hand until Alex looks at her. Her lips are quirked in the beginnings of an awe-struck smile, and when Alex meets her eye she leans forward, bringing their lips together gently. It’s easily the softest kiss they’ve ever shared, and something quivers in the tiny, dangerous box in Alex’s chest. She still doesn’t want – isn’t ready – to deal with what it means, but Lena leans back far enough to whisper to her before she has to. “Alex,” she says softly, close enough that her breath brushes over Alex’s lips, “take me home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea where i'm going with this but there is sort of a plot in my brain so yay? 
> 
> pls comment, they're like hugs but with words.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm really bad at replying to comments but please know that every time i see that little email in my inbox my heart grows three sizes and i do a little happy dance on the inside. sometimes also the outside, but then people look at me funny.
> 
> also i couldn't remember how much kara told lena about argo, so for the purposes of this chapter lets assume not much.

**iv.**

 

So then it goes like this, with Lena tugging Alex back to her apartment and into her bedroom and out of her clothes, keeping a firm grip on at least one of her hands up until she binds both of them to the headboard with silk scarves. It’s not gentle – gentle is too close to intimate, too close to the thing they’re both running from – but there’s a tenderness to it that’s never been there before. Lena pins her to the mattress like she’s afraid Alex will disappear if she gets loose and keeps her there until her voice is hoarse from screaming. They fall asleep wrapped around each other and wake up the same way, and Alex lingers far longer in the sunlight than she ever has before.

It changes after that.

Not the sex. That remains rough, molten, bruising in a way neither of them knows how to stop. The change is in the moments that come after, the lethargic come-downs in the darkness that are slowly infiltrated by softly-spoken confessions. Alex whispers of her agents, how they’re chafing under the restriction to non-lethal weaponry in the face of increasing violence, leaving her feeling torn between protecting a city seemingly determined to tear itself apart and upholding the last remnants of J’onn’s legacy. Lena murmurs her fear that she’ll never get out from under the cloud that is the Luthor name, and Alex remember the hints that Brainy unthinkingly drops sometimes and aches with the desire to tell her, reassure her that her mark on history is not only good, but lasting.

She doesn’t, though. Not out loud, because that’s not what they do. Conversations between them are always one-sided, a whisper into the dark, and the answers are only ever in the brush of lips and teeth. Reassurance comes in the form of nails dragged across skin and bruises pressed into flesh, because talking would edge too close to the cracked box in Alex’s chest. But she can do this, can mark Lena and be marked in return, and for now, it’s enough.

It’s in one such still moment that Alex finds herself catching her breath in Lena’s bed, staring blankly at the muted television on the wall that they hadn’t bothered to turn off. The floor-to-ceiling windows are uncovered, letting the dim lights from the city bathe the room in a soft, ruddy glow, and they’re high up enough that Alex can see the beginnings of a storm rolling towards them from over the ocean.

Lena’s weight is pressed against Alex’s side, and the skin of her arm, thrown limply over Alex’s stomach, is almost translucent in the reflected light from the screen. Her eyes are closed, but Alex can tell from her breathing that she’s not asleep. It’s late, well after midnight according to timestamp in the corner of the news broadcast, and Alex knows she should leave before she falls asleep. But she’s warm and comfortable, sore in a way she’s begun to associate with the empty tranquillity of the afterglow, and her body is begging her to just succumb to her exhaustion until a familiar outline sharpens her focus on the television.

Kara’s face flashes across the screen, part of a package the news show is doing about the increasingly violent protests, and Alex feels her heart constrict in her chest. Her sister’s absence is an ache that sits in her ribcage and never really goes away, but it’s been months since her last message, and seeing her face unexpectedly ignites a pang of longing acute enough that Alex inhales sharply.

Lena catches the movement, and her eyes flick open, glittering in the low light as they dart from Alex’s face to the screen and back.

“Where is she, really?” Lena asks into the silence.

“What?” Alex’s shoulder is still throbbing from where Lena had bitten her hard enough to break the skin, but she rolls onto her side anyway, turning her back on the screen.

“Kara. I know she’s not on assignment.” Alex stares at her, surprised, and Lena shifts onto her stomach, resting her head on folded arms and watching Alex from under her eyelashes. “I’m not stupid, Alex. I worked out who she was a long time ago. Where is she?”

“Krypton,” Alex answers after a long, agonised pause. Lingering loyalty to Kara and a lifetime of keeping her secret claws at her chest, but Alex finds she isn’t surprised that Lena knows, and she can’t bring herself to lie to her here, in only place she still feels sane.

The answer doesn’t garner the reaction she was expecting. Lena stiffens and pulls away from her, shutters coming down behind her eyes and the hint of a smile vanishing from her lips.

“Fine, I get it, you can’t tell me,” she says, twisting away from Alex and sitting up, and Alex belatedly remembers the safe word whispered into her ear the first time they did this.

“Shit, no, that’s not what I meant,” Alex says, catching her arm before she can leave the bed. “She’s on Krypton. Part of it survived the destruction.” Lena pauses, frowning over her shoulder, and Alex continues, “Argo City, where she lived, it survived. Her mom’s there. I don’t—I don’t think she’s coming back.”

It’s the first time Alex has said that out loud, and she’s surprised by the way her voice cracks and breaks around the thought. She’s not looking at Lena anymore, she can’t, but her fingers are digging into Lena’s skin where they’re wrapped around her arm, and Lena has twisted herself around to watch her with wide, concerned eyes.

“Alex…” Lena breathes, but Alex finds that now she’s started talking, she can’t stop. Her voice is wobbling alarmingly, and the words burn as they tear themselves out of her throat.

“I don’t think she’s coming back, and I don’t—I can’t—She’s my favourite person in the universe and she’s on a fucking rock five lightyears away and I don’t know how to—I need her and she’s not—She’s not…”

Lena’s hand lands gently on Alex’s cheek, wiping away the moisture Alex hadn’t noticed gathering under her eyes. “Alex…” she whispers again, and presses her forehead to Alex’s temple. “It’s going to be okay.”

Alex laughs, wet and mirthless, and turns her head to capture Lena’s lips, seeking comfort in the only way she’ll allow herself. Lena doesn’t resist when Alex shifts them until she’s straddling Lena’s prone form, and the hand on her cheek slides into her hair as Alex works her way down Lena’s body with her teeth and tongue. She drags her nails down Lena’s stomach in the wake of her mouth, scoring her way over the bruised skin of her abdomen and losing herself in the moan that tears out of Lena’s throat as she arches into the pressure.

She hesitates at the apex of Lena’s thighs, glancing up with wet eyes to see Lena watching her. Her eyes are dark, but there’s something soft in them that Alex shies away from, breaking her gaze in the face of something that feels too close to absolution. She lifts one of Lena’s legs over her shoulder, nipping at the skin of her thigh and eliciting a spasm that digs Lena’s heel sharply against her spine before she presses her mouth against her centre, letting the taste of her mingle with the salty tears already on her tongue.

The hand in Alex’s hair tightens painfully, pressing her mouth more closely against Lena as Alex wrings an aria of moans and pleas from her throat. Alex’s free hand slides down her own body to land between her legs, fingers working roughly over her clit until her legs start to tremble while Lena’s other hand scrabbles for purchase in the sheets.

They climax together, Lena with a gasping cry as she arches off the mattress, digging her heel into Alex’s back, and Alex with a full body shudder and something close to a sob against the heat on her tongue. She rides out the aftershocks with her head pressed against Lena’s thigh, feeling the matching tremble running through Lena’s body with every breath.

Eventually, Lena unwinds her leg from Alex’s shoulder and tugs her up with the hand still curled through her hair. Alex goes pliantly, settling against her side with her head pillowed on Lena’s chest, and waits for the customary wave of empty lethargy that usually overtakes her, desperate for the numbness that follows in its wake.

But for the first time since she’d drunkenly followed Lena back to her apartment, her emotions stay alarmingly present, winding through her heart until the beginnings of a sob works it way into her throat. Alex fights it, forcing it down, but Lena is pressed close enough against her that she feels the hitch in her breathing. She doesn’t speak, just shifts until both her arms are wrapped around Alex’s body. Alex can feel the tears she’s desperately trying to blink away leaking onto Lena’s skin, but it’s not until she presses a gentle kiss into Alex’s hair that Alex’s tenuous grasp on herself snaps.

“I don’t think she’s coming back,” she whispers again, voice breaking around the sob that finally works itself free. “I don’t think she’s coming back and I can’t—I don’t—Fuck, _I miss her_.”

“I know,” Lena murmurs into her hair, tightening her arms around Alex as she shudders against her, the box in her chest cracking wider as she cries against Lena’s skin. They don’t speak again, leaving the silence unbroken but for the far-off rumble of thunder and patter of rain against the windows, but Lena’s arms stay wound around her, tight and grounding, until Alex surrenders to her exhaustion and slips into a dreamless sleep.

They don’t talk about it in the morning, but Lena stays close to Alex until she leaves, watching her with unfathomable eyes, and that night, Alex gets back to her apartment to find Lena waiting for her, curled on her couch and wearing her soft, casual clothes that almost nobody ever gets to see. Alex can’t even muster the energy to be surprised, and she’s crossed the room and collapsed into Lena’s arms before she thinks to dwell on what her presence means.

**…**

The protests get worse. Violence is quick to erupt between the two sides now, and the brutality of it is increasing alarmingly. The NCPD is doing their best, but they’re starting to buckle under the pressure of containing the chaos when those involved often have super-human abilities. After one particularly disastrous incident where an infernian laid waste to an entire street, the DEO, better equipped and armed with more experience in dealing with the extra-normal, had been ordered to take point on policing the rallies.

It’s a headache Alex could do without, particularly today. Rain is drizzling down lightly over the crowd, not heavy enough to disperse them but enough to make everything irritatingly damp, and she’s tired and cranky, uncomfortably aware of the deep, half-healed scratch Lena had left along length of her spine that chafes against the wet fabric of her uniform every time she moves. She’s also more than a little hungover, having fallen back into a bottle the night before when Lena had messaged her saying she’d be in meetings and conference calls for most of the night, trying to salvage an international merger that had gone sideways. Alex had forced herself to ignore the disappointment curling in her stomach, telling herself it was no big deal as she’d gone back to her apartment and downed most of a bottle of cheap scotch before passing out on her couch.

The noise isn’t doing anything for the resulting headache. Alex prowls around the edge of the crowd, watching the tension between the two sides grow and trying to pick out the instigators. James is there too, in his Guardian getup, moving freely among both sides and quietly pulling the louder ones off to the side. Alex nods to him once when he catches her eye, then makes a point of keeping the bulk of the crowd between them. Alex isn’t avoiding him, exactly – she responds to his check-in texts when he sends them – but she’s ducked any attempt he’s made at a face-to-face conversation. She doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore. He hasn’t asked about Lena since the day after Alex pulled her out of the bar, and Lena hasn’t mentioned him at all.  

Alex knows they should tell him what they’re doing. Keeping it from him feels a lot like lying to a friend, but Alex doesn’t know how to start that conversation. She doesn’t know how to admit that the night he’d asked her for help, she’d followed his recently-ex-girlfriend back to her apartment and spent the night learning what she tastes like, how she sounds when she comes apart completely. It feels like a violation of some code of friendship, one that leaves her feeling guilty and uncertain every time she thinks about it, so she avoids him and feels guilty about that instead.

Avoiding him here isn’t hard. The two sides are separated by flimsy-looking barricades, interspersed with her agents and members of the riot squad, but there are far more people than they’d anticipated, and some of them are slipping through the cracks. The mood is getting ugly, the invective hurled between both sides more vitriolic, and Alex is on the verge of ordering the whole thing dispersed when rapid movement in her peripheral vision draws her eye.

A protester from the pro-alien side had ducked under the barricade, and was running quickly towards the other side. The agent monitoring that section, Brooks, has his back to him, distracted by someone in the anti-alien crowd, and Alex tastes the bitter rush of adrenaline in her mouth when she realises the alien is heading straight for him.

“Brooks!” she yells, already moving towards him, but the noise of the crowd drowns her out, leaving the rookie blissfully unaware of the danger hurtling towards him. Alex forces herself into a dead sprint, trying to keep her balance on the rain-slicked pavement and wishing for the thousandth time that her sister was there.

She just makes it. Alex catches Brooks in the ribs and shoves him aside three paces ahead of the alien, and he sprawls gracelessly to the ground with a grunt. Alex turns to face the oncoming alien and sees anger flashes through his yellow eyes, but he’s moving too quickly to alter his course. He slams into Alex with more force than she expected, pushing her back several steps and leaving her body aching. Her shoulder in particular is throbbing sharply, but she ignores it in favour of snapping a swift kick at her attacker’s knees, pushing him off balance, and following it up with an uppercut that catches him squarely on the jaw. He reels backwards a few steps, then hisses something at her in a sibilant language she doesn’t understand and charges towards her. Alex curls under his punch, twisting until her back is against his chest, then jabs two quick elbow strikes into his face before seizing his wrist and spinning behind him, forcing his arm upward until something pops and he falls to his knees. He howls and snarls something unintelligible at her, but Alex brings an elbow sharply down on the top of his spine and he collapses forward with a grunt and doesn’t move again.

Alex watches him for a moment to make sure he’s done before turning to check on Brooks. He’s managed to struggle to his feet and unholster his weapon, but now he’s just standing, gun limp in his hand, staring at Alex with something approaching horror on his face.

“You good, Agent?” Alex asks, and Brooks shakes his head, raising a shaking hand to point towards her.

“Director, your shoulder…” he says, voice shaking, and Alex looks down to see what looks like an oversized bee stinger piercing through her uniform to lodge in her skin.

Now that she’s looked at it, and with the adrenaline of the fight fading, she becomes aware of the sharp burning sensation, of how painful the tingling in her hand has become. Alex yanks the stinger out with a hiss of pain and looks down at it with eyes that won’t focus. There’s too much movement around her, too much noise, and the fire that’s radiating out from her shoulder feels like it should hurt but doesn’t. Someone behind her is yelling something that sounds like her name, but as she turns to look at them she finds her legs won’t turn with her. She tries to frown down at them, confused, but the ground swims alarmingly towards her, and her last thought is that she’s falling awfully slowly before her vision goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry. pls comment? or [yell at me.](http://the-ominous-owl.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you guys. soz for the cliffhanger last chapter :]

**v.**

Lately, it goes like this, with Alex waking up one of two ways. Hungover and empty, sprawled across whatever surface of her apartment she’d settled on, with her head pounding and stomach squirming; or warm and aching, with Lena, naked and sore and twined together in a facsimile of an embrace. Sometimes it’s both, after a particularly bad night, but it’s always at least one, and it’s been long enough that Alex can’t picture the last time she woke up both sober and alone.

She’s sober and alone now, but she also feels like she’s been hit by a truck and run over repeatedly. Her eyes are gummed shut, and by the time she’s rubbed them open with the hand that doesn’t hurt to move, there’s a new, gentle pressure on her wrist.

“Easy, Director,” a familiar voice says, and Alex blinks until the face of Dr Henderson, the DEO’s head medic, swims into view.

“What happened?” Alex asks, wincing at the scratch of her voice. She tries to sit up, but even the gentle pressure of Henderson’s hand is enough to stop her.

“You picked a fight with a ty’lok,” he says, sounding mildly exasperated. “You won, for what it’s worth, but it was a close thing.”

“Didn’t start it…” she objects reflexively, then remembers why. She sits up rapidly, ignoring the hand on her shoulder and the bolt of pain that shoots from her arm across her chest. “The rookie, Brooks, is he okay? It was going for him…” Her head feels wrong, like it’s both too heavy and not actually attached to her, and she can’t find the strength to resist when Henderson guides her gently back down.

“Brooks is fine, Director. You got between him and the ty’lok, and subdued it before the venom incapacitated you. Mr Olsen got you back here in time for us to reverse the damage to your nervous system, and the agents and the NCPD broke up the protest before it devolved into a riot.”

Alex’s memories are fuzzy, but she vaguely remembers…some of that. She remembers being carried, and the feeling of cold metal against her skin. She remembers slurring instructions to pale-faced agents as someone tugged her into the back seat of an SUV. She remembers lying across something hard, a familiar face above her, watching her with wide, concerned eyes as he pressed his hands against her shoulder and yelled at the driver to hurry.

“Director?” Henderson asks, and Alex blinks as she realises he’s been talking and she hasn’t heard a word.

“Sorry. My head feels…floaty…” she says, rubbing her eyes again, and Henderson nods.

“It’s okay. It’s to be expected. I was just saying that you’ll probably feel weak for a few more hours as the venom works its way out of your system, and the drugs we used to neutralise it might make you feel a little fuzzy and disoriented for a while.”

Alex starts to nod, but stops when it makes the swimming in her head worse. “What about this?” she asks, rolling her injured shoulder and regretting it when the motion sends another bolt of pain down her arm.

“It will hurt for a while, and the skin around the puncture site will be an interesting colour for a few days, but you should make a full recovery, as long as you take it easy. As for your…other injuries, I can assure you—”

“What other injuries?” Alex asks, frowning. Henderson looks pointedly down at the scrubs that have replaced the uniform she was wearing, and Alex feels her cheeks flush when she realises what he means. Her increasingly frequent nights with Lena have left a kaleidoscope of evidence across her skin, and even without medical training, the bitemarks in particular would be unmistakable.

“As I was saying, you needn’t worry,” Henderson says as Alex shifts uncomfortably. “Only myself and my assistant saw them, and I can assure you, you may rely on our discretion.”

“I…Thank you,” Alex says, unable to meet his eye, but Henderson just smiles.

“Of course, Director.”

“So I can go?” Alex asks, desperate to move past the awkwardness of that conversation. She tries to sit up again and makes it most of the way to vertical before her head and shoulder throb warningly in tandem.

“To the ops centre? No. Home? Yes, though I would like someone nearby to monitor you tonight. Do you have someone you could stay with?” he asks, and Alex’s fogged mind flicks automatically to Kara before she remembers and her heart aches.

“I…”

“It’s taken care of, Doc,” a new voice says from the doorway, and Alex looks over to see James hovering over the threshold with Brainy at his shoulder. James is still in his suit, his helmet hanging from one hand, but from what Alex can see, he looks uninjured.

“Are you guys okay?” Alex asks. James nods as Henderson quietly bows out, allowing her friends to take his place beside her bed.

“Yeah. Vasquez took over at the scene and shut the whole thing down,” James says, looking at her with concerned eyes. There’s something else in his expression that Alex can’t pick, but Brainy pulls her focus away before she can work out what it is.

“The ty’lok is in custody, and there were no other casualties,” he says, dragging a deft hand over the tablet cradled in the crook of his arm. “The anti-alien protester left quickly after the riot squad went in.”

“They left?” Alex asks, confused. The previous protests had devolved into violence largely because neither side was willing to back down, and the #earthfirst protesters leaving first and quietly was wildly out of character for them.

“They’d already got what they wanted,” James says, sounding weary, and Brainy twists the tablet so Alex can see the screen. Alex has to squint to make her eyes focus enough to see it, and it takes her brain a second to parse what she’s watching.

It’s a short video, maybe a minute long, but it’s enough. On screen, Alex watches herself tackle Brooks out of the path of the incoming alien before getting tackled herself, wincing involuntarily when the stinger protruding from his wrist slices through her suit and into her skin. The fight that follows is quick and brutal, and leaves the ty’lok lying at her feet, either unconscious or surrendering. The camera zooms in as Alex yanks the stinger out of her shoulder and stares down at it for a long moment before looking up, turning to glance over her shoulder before her legs buckle underneath her. James lunges into frame to catch her before she hits the ground, and the video ends as black-clad DEO agents and the NCPD riot squad storm into the crowd.

“Your guys got the kid who filmed the video, but he’d already uploaded it before they took his phone,” James says, and Brainy nods from beside him.

“Yes. We have identified him, however. He works for Timothy Greyson.”

Alex swears softly. “Was it a set-up?” she asks, and James shrugs.

“Maybe. Can’t imagine an alien working with someone like Greyson willingly, or Greyson going to an alien for help, for that matter, but it’s a bit too neat to be a coincidence.”

“Footage of an alien attacking a federal agent is excellent PR for the #earthfirst movement,” Brainy adds, and Alex groans and rubs her eyes.

“I have to talk to the kid,” Alex says, trying to think through the cloud in her brain and lever herself out of the bed without using any of the muscles in her shoulder. She doesn’t get very far with either endeavour before James stops her.

“Woah, hey, no,” he says, easing her back down with a hand on her uninjured shoulder.

“Dr Henderson said you need to rest,” Brainy adds from behind him, earning himself a scowl from Alex.

“I’m fine, guys,” she insists, but James shakes his head.

“I called Lena,” he says softly, and Alex’s eyes snap to meet his. “She’s coming to take you home.”

“Lena? Why would you…” she starts, but even as she says it, she knows it’s a futile gesture. His face is carefully blank, but Alex can see it in his eyes. He knows.

“Brainy, can you give us a minute?” James says, and Brainy tilts his head but nods sharply.

“Of course. I’ll be in the ops centre.”  He turns and heads for the door, but pauses halfway there. “I’m glad your injuries weren’t more serious,” he says, smiling briefly back at Alex before vanishing out into the hallway.

The moment the door swings shut behind him, Alex starts talking, trying to push an articulate excuse through the toxin-fog in her brain. “James, I don’t—I mean we’re not—She’s—” she babbles, desperate to explain herself, but James cuts her off with a gentle hand.

“Alex, stop. Breathe. It’s not—” He stops with a sigh and drops his helmet onto the bed behind him before sinking onto Henderson’s stool, bringing himself down to eye-level with Alex. “It’s okay. You don’t need to… I’ve already spoken to her.”

There’s a pit yawning open somewhere below her ribcage, but Alex asks anyway, “What did she tell you?”

James smiles wryly. “That it’s none of my business. She’s right. I lost any claim on that part of her life when she broke up with me.”

“James…” Guilt twists in Alex’s stomach, making her feel more nauseous than any alien toxin, but James just shakes his head.

“Honestly, it’s fine. I’m not angry. I was surprised, but…” He shrugs, making the plates of his suit click together. “If she’s happy and you’re happy, I can be okay with it.”

Alex has to force down a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘Happy’ isn’t a word she’d use to describe either of them, but she can barely define her relationship with Lena inside her own head when she’s fully lucid, let alone trying to explain it out loud to Lena’s ex-boyfriend while under the effects of several chemicals from at least two different planets. What they have is a spectacular collision of need and selfish want, fuelled by alcohol and denial and nowhere near healthy, and Alex is almost certain that if he knew the details, James wouldn’t be nearly as supportive.

But he’s one of the only friends she has left, and he’s offering her an out on the guilt that’s been gnawing at her since she let Lena tug her into her bed. Alex takes it, nodding at him slowly and letting herself breathe when his face relaxes into a smile. The motion of her head does shake one last question out from the molasses of her brain, and it escapes out through her mouth before she can catch it.

“How did you find out?” Alex asks, and for the first time, James looks uncomfortable.

“You were pretty out of it when we were bringing you back here,” he says, looking apologetic. “You…said some things.”

“What things?”

James shakes his head. “I think you need to talk to Lena, not me.”

“But I don’t remember what I said!” Alex remembers talking, remembers struggling to tell someone something that seemed vitally important, but the details have faded frustratingly into the miasma.

James looks at her, his gaze uncomfortably piercing. “Don’t you?” he asks, and the box in Alex’s chest creaks and constricts. James smiles at her silence and mercifully looks away. “She’ll be here soon. Vasquez got clothes from your office; do you want me to get someone to help you change?”

Alex starts to shake her head, but the floating feeling is back so she settles for just saying, “No, I can manage. Thanks. And thanks for…” She motions to her shoulder, and James smiles.

“Anytime.” He reaches over to squeeze her hand before he stands, retrieving his helmet and heading for the door, leaving Alex alone with the ringing in her ears. She lets her head drop back onto the pillows behind her, closing her eyes with a sigh. She has no idea what she said to James when she was delirious and cradled in his lap, but whatever it was must have been compelling. The ever-growing box in her chest is aching with renewed intensity, but Alex forces it closed again and focuses on getting up.

She shuffles upwards in stages, slow but determined, until she can swing her legs out over the side of the bed. She doesn’t stand, not yet ready to trust her legs to support her weight, instead reaching for the neatly folded pile of clothes on the foot of the bed. Her phone rests on top of the pile, but Alex ignores it for now, focusing instead on getting herself out of the unflattering and uncomfortable clothes.

Removing the loose top of the scrubs with one hand is an arduous process, but eventually Alex manages to get it off over her head. She relieved to find she’s still wearing her bra, less for the sake of modesty and more because it means she was never in enough danger that they needed unimpeded access to her chest, which is comforting.

Less comforting is her first sight the damage from the alien’s stinger. Henderson was right; it is an odd greenish colour, almost like grass stains smeared in a starburst pattern across her skin. The puncture itself is covered by a small, neat dressing, and Alex resists the urge to remove it. She does poke it lightly with her other hand, probing around for the sorest spots and wincing when she finds them.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and Alex absently calls for them to enter before she remembers she isn’t wearing a shirt. She twists automatically to cover herself, but the rapid movement triggers a flash of agony that sears from her shoulder outward. Biting back the cry that claws up her throat, Alex forces herself to close her eyes, breathing through the pain until a sharp gasp pulls her attention to the doorway.

It’s Lena, and the sight of her completely derails the rickety train of thought Alex had managed to pull from under the blanket over her brain. Lena looks like she came directly from L-Corp, and she’s dressed in an outfit that Alex knows she keeps in her office, meaning she spent the night at work again. Her clothes are no different to any of the other outfits Alex has seen her in – she’s peeled her out of that exact vest-blouse-and-skirt combination at least once before – but for some reason Alex finds herself unable to take her eyes off her.

She looks tired, her make-up faded and the dark circles under her eyes speaking to a night spent without sleep, but Alex is utterly captivated. She’s always been aware of how attractive Lena is, but she’s never been so entranced by someone who’d done nothing more enticing than enter a room. Alex is distracted enough by addled brain’s fixation that it takes her a second to notice that Lena is staring at her in turn, her eyes wide and worried.

“Oh my god, Alex…”

Alex’s instinctive reaction is to shield her injury from view, but after moving her arm too quickly and sparking another bolt of pain, she realises how stupid it is. Modesty at this point is a futile gesture; Lena has had her mouth on more parts of Alex than she can currently see, and she’d had more than enough time to examine the weird, greenish tint to her skin.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Alex says instead, aiming for nonchalance as Lena slowly approaches her.

“That comforting, because it looks terrible.”

“Gee, thanks,” Alex says, smiling when Lena frowns at her. “It’s fine.”

“It’s _green_ , Alex. What happened?” Lena’s hand drifts up from her side to hover over Alex’s skin like she wants to touch it, but the brush of her fingers never lands.

“Got between a rookie and an angry ty’lok.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. “I’m assuming a ty’lok is some kind of insect?” she asks, her eyes tracing the patterns on Alex’s skin, and Alex nods slowly.

“They’re human-shaped, but yeah, basically.”

Lena’s hand is lingering close enough to the discoloured skin of her shoulder than Alex can feel the warmth of her palm. It’s distracting in a way Alex hadn’t expected, and between that and the faint scent of Lena’s perfume, Alex is having trouble keeping her already-fogged brain focused. There was something she had to say, something important…

“Oh. I’m sorry. About James…” she starts, but Lena shakes her head.

“It’s okay. We can talk about it later.”

She doesn’t sound angry, and Alex’s head is starting to feel too light again, so Alex lets it go. The florescent lights are glinting off the laminated visitor’s badge clipped to Lena’s vest, and Alex’s attention is drawn to way it shimmers and shines in rhythmic patterns as she breathes.

“Alex?” Lena says, and suddenly the warmth that was hovering over her shoulder is resting against her cheek. Alex tilts her head up to meet Lena’s eye, and something flutters in her chest at the way Lena is looking at her. “You’re okay?”

Alex smiles up at her. “I’m okay.”

“Good. I…” Lena trails off, letting her thumb stroke little arcs across Alex’s skin. Her eyes are flicking between Alex’s own, staring into her with an intensity that should be uncomfortable but isn’t. Her free hand is clenched by her thigh, and Alex reaches up to loosen it and lace their fingers together, mildly surprised when Lena not only allows the contact, but hangs on tightly.

“I’m okay,” Alex says again softly, and Lena takes a shuddering breath and nods before shaking herself lightly and taking a step back.

“Let’s get you home.”

With Lena’s help, Alex manages to change into her street clothes without doing herself further injury. Lena helps her stand, not objecting when Alex’s hands land on her hips to steady herself, and together they make their way through the corridors of the DEO. Lena keeps close to her side, as if she’s afraid Alex might collapse at any moment, and Alex has to actively stop herself from lacing their fingers together more than once.

They don’t speak again until they’re both settled in Lena’s car, engine idling and rain sliding down the windshield in weird, geometric patterns that Alex is pretty sure are just a figment of whatever chemicals are still swimming through her brain. It’s later than Alex thought, the last remnants of the day fading over the horizon and giving way to the artificial twilight of the city.

“Your place or mine?” Lena asks, and Alex shrugs with one shoulder. “Where would be more comfortable?”

_Wherever you are_ , Alex almost says, but catches herself with the words halfway to her lips. The thought sneaks up on her, surprising and unexpected, but Alex doesn’t have the energy to chase it back to its source. She’s not sure she’s ready to, even if she did.

“Mine, I guess,” she says instead, curling her sore arm across her stomach. “I probably have better painkillers than you.”

“You’d be surprised,” Lena says with a smile as she pulls out into the flow of traffic, but she takes the turn off to Alex’s apartment anyway.

**…**

Getting up to her apartment is more difficult than Alex expected, but this time, she doesn’t stop herself from taking Lena’s hand. It grounds her in a way she’s not prepared to examine, and when she catches herself swaying alarmingly in the elevator, the arm Lena wraps around her waist feels comfortably, dangerously familiar. It’s the longest they’ve spent together without tearing each other’s clothes off since before Kara left, and there’s something about that that feels significant in a way Alex isn’t ready to poke at.

Lena dips her hand into Alex’s pocket to retrieve her keys, and once they’re inside, she tugs Alex gently towards her bedroom. The apartment is dim and quiet, darkness lit only by the reflected light of the city and silence broken only by the patter of rain on the windows, but Lena leads her with the confidence of familiarity. Alex is too exhausted to do anything other than follow her pliantly, and she sinks down onto the edge of her bed as Lena flicks the lamp on and rummages through her drawers, emerging with her softest, most comfortable pyjamas.

Standing feels almost like she’s swimming through the air, but Lena is there, steadying her and easing her out of her clothes gently. It’s a sharp contrast to how it usually goes between them, having Lena undress her this slowly, and coupled with the way her limbs feel like they’re floating away from her, Alex feels like she’s living in slow motion.

Even through the haze in her mind that’s being compounded by exhaustion, Alex notices the way Lena’s hand strays towards her injured shoulder more than once, but it’s not until Alex is dressed again that she lets her fingers brush over the markings. The neckline of the loose pyjama top is wide enough that the corner of the dressing peeks out from under it, and Alex’s skin tingles when Lena’s fingers ghost over it.

“Does it hurt?” Lena asks softly, tracing one of the green veins along her collarbone.

“Not anymore,” Alex answers, not entirely lying. The ache in her shoulder is lessening, though Alex isn’t sure if it’s because it’s getting better or as a function of her exhaustion.

“You scared me today,” Lena whispers, so softly that, even as close as they’re standing, Alex almost doesn’t hear her over the rain. “When James called me, I almost didn’t answer, and then when I did and he told me you’d been hurt…”

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmurs, meaning it. Lena has her back to the lamp, casting her face into shadow, but her eyes are downcast, following the path of her fingers on Alex’s skin.

Lena shakes her head. “I just…it scared me,” she says again, and Alex reaches a hand up to cover the one tracing patterns on her collarbone.

They stand like that for a long moment, too close in the shadowed room, until Alex sways slightly on her feet. Lena is close enough to feel the motion, and she drops her hand slowly.

“You should sleep,” she says, and Alex’s body agrees vehemently.

Alex nods sleepily and drops back onto the bed, fumbling clumsily with the covers one-handed until Lena leans down to help her. She tucks Alex in, brushing the hair from her eyes as Alex blinks sleepily up at her, then flicks the light off and moves away. Lena’s halfway to the door before Alex realises she’s leaving, and her mouth starts moving without her permission.

“Lena?” she calls softly, and Lena pauses. “Stay?”

Lena hesitates near the end of the bed, and Alex slowly loses the fight to keep her eyes open. She can still hear Lena moving around, the soft rustle of her clothes, but she’s sure Lena is leaving until the other side of the bed dips. Lena shuffles around for a second until her weigh presses comfortably against Alex’s back, and the last thing Alex is aware of is the brush of Lena’s lips against her neck as she finally succumbs to sleep.

**…**

Alex wakes up in stages. First comes the awareness that she’s sore, the dull ache radiating out from her shoulder slowly pressing into her weirdly vivid dreams. Then the way the light brightens, softening from the intense, almost psychedelic colours that have been chasing her all night to the gentle reds and greys of the morning on her eyelids. She shifts, snuggling further under the covers before she realises that she’s cold because the warmth at her back is missing.

Reaching a hand out behind her, Alex finds the sheets empty but with the barest hint of fading warmth that say Lena has not long left. She frowns, trying to force her thoughts into order, but it takes her a couple of minutes to shake off her torpor. Her brain feels less like mush than when she fell asleep, but now she’s awake and aware again, her shoulder is making itself known.

The sounds of someone moving around echo softly from outside her room, so she’s pretty sure Lena is still in the apartment, but her muscles feel heavy and sluggish, and it takes considerable effort to force herself out of bed and onto her feet to investigate.

What she finds when she leaves her room freezes her in her tracks. Lena is sitting at the table, posture stiff and arms folded. She’s wearing clothes borrowed from Alex’s closet, and her expression is carefully, painfully blank. In front of her, gathered damningly on the table, are almost a dozen bottles in various shades of amber. Most are almost empty, left abandoned and replaced when they ran low, and the ones that aren’t are at least half-gone. They hadn’t all been there when Alex had left yesterday, but Lena had plenty of time to go looking for them while she slept.

Lena’s gaze is level and piercing into her, and Alex forces herself to move forward almost solely so she doesn’t have to see the expression swirling in the depths of her eyes.

“Hi,” Alex says, walking past Lena and into the kitchen, desperate to avoid the fight she can sense coming. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you. How much did you have to drink two nights ago?” she asks, almost conversationally, and Alex stiffens but doesn’t turn around.

“It doesn’t—”

“How much, Alex.”

“It’s not—”

“How. Much.”

“I don’t know!” Alex snaps, whirling to face her. “Does it matter?”

“That depends. Were you still drunk when you were overseeing that protest yesterday—”

“No!”

“—when you fought an alien that could have killed you, and nearly did?”

“I was fine,” Alex insists, but the lie burns at her throat. She might not have been drunk, but she had been at least hungover, and she had no way of knowing what effect that had. Would she have noticed Brooks struggling with his section sooner if she’d been more alert? She can’t say for sure, and judging from her expression, Lena knows it.

“You’re not _fine_ , Alex,” Lena says, her tone carefully level but her shoulders stiff with tension as she stands. “You haven’t been fine since Kara left.”

“Like you can talk,” Alex snaps, defensiveness rising up in her like a striking serpent. “I’ve seen _both_ your wet bars. Are you going to tell me the whiskey in your office is just for show?”

Lena’s eyes narrow. “I’m not running a paramilitary organisation. I don’t regularly pick fights with beings that could snap my spine in half.”

“I don’t regularly pick fights—”

“And I don’t feel the need to drink myself to sleep on the nights I’m not fucking my sister’s best friend.”

Those words hit Alex like a punch in the gut, but she forces herself not to let it show. She takes a step forward, lowering her voice to hiss, “No, you just stay in your office and work until you pass out at your desk. How is that any better?”

“Passing out at my desk isn’t gonna get me _killed_ , Alex!” Lena snaps, then takes a breath through her nose and makes a visible effort to calm herself. “It’s okay that you’re not fine. It’s understandable. But this?” She points behind her to the bottles on the table. “This has to stop.”

“It’s not a problem. I’m _fine!_ ”

“You’re not!” Lena insists, moving towards her. She’s close enough now that Alex can see the shimmer in her eyes, and she’s surprised when she feels a matching dampness in her own. “You’re not fine, and if you keep going this way, you’re going to die!”

“Why do you care?”

“ _Why do you think?_ ”

Alex kisses her.

She kisses her because it’s easier than facing the emotion in her eyes, safer than continuing the argument that had strayed dangerously close to the box in her chest. She curls her fingers into Lena’s borrowed hoodie, and Lena responds instantly, bringing her hands up to rest on Alex’s face and pressing into her hard, pushing her backwards until she hits the kitchen counter with a grunt. At least one of them is crying; Alex can feel the wetness on her cheek and taste the salt on her tongue.

“I lost her,” Lena breathes, pressing their foreheads together. “I can’t lose you, too.”

_Why not?_ Alex wants to ask. _You won’t_ , she wants to promise. _I’ll try,_ she wants to say. But she can’t get the words past the lump in her throat, and before she can speak, Lena leans in, pressing her painfully against the counter and capturing her lips again.

They stay like that, locked together and breathless, until Lena’s phone trills from her pocket. She ignores it the first time, but when it chimes and then trills again, she makes an irritated noise in her throat and steps back, leaving Alex suppressing a shiver at the loss of her warmth. Lena glares down at her phone for a long moment, then sighs.

“I have to go. I…” She looks up at Alex, then away. “I’ll see you later.”

By the time Alex has gathered enough of herself to respond, Lena has vanished out the door. It takes Alex a second to regain control over her body, but when she can move again, the first thing she does is gather the bottles from the table. She carries them back to the kitchen, and methodically, one-by-one, pours the contents of each of them down the sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look, no cliffhanger this time! hooray! we're over half way as well. i think.
> 
> pls comment. they're like word-hugs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter took for-fucking-ever and i'm still not 100% happy with it, but it also has the best line i think i've ever written and now i've been looking at it too long so i'm just gonna release it into the wild.  
> go and be free, you overly-difficult collection of ficwords.
> 
> also read til the end. something fun happens.

**vi.**

And then it goes like this, with Alex lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and realising that she’s lost the ability to sleep alone. She’s not sure when that happened, or how, but it doesn’t feel like a recent development. Before Lena’s impromptu intervention, sleeping alone meant passing out on whatever relatively comfortable surface was closest, but on the first night after she’d poured every drop of alcohol in her apartment down the sink, Alex lies in bed, awake and with her shoulder aching steadily, and discovers that it’s too quiet. She can hear every little noise in the apartment and beyond – the soft hum of the fridge, the muffled thumping that’s her downstairs neighbour either doing laundry or having sex, the rattle of rain on the windows – and every time she moves, trying to find a comfortable position, her shoulder throbs and twinges.

There’s a little voice at the back of her mind that whispers that if she can’t have alcohol, she should indulge her other, more pleasurable vice, but the thought of seeing Lena is terrifying in a way Alex can’t articulate. Something had changed the last time they spoke, a subtle shift in the orbit they’d fallen into, and Alex isn’t sure she’s ready to deal with whatever had escaped the box in her chest at Lena’s whispered, anguished confession.  

She eventually falls into a light, fitful sleep and wakes at the slightest noise, and goes to work the next morning tired and sore and grumpy.

The moment she steps into her office, she’s ambushed by Brainy and Vasquez, armed with orders from Henderson, who inform her in no uncertain terms that she’s banned from fieldwork until her shoulder heals. Alex has never been more politely ganged up on, but they’re both firm, and in the end, Alex capitulates just to get them out of her office.

Her confinement ends up being necessary for an entirely different, far more annoying reason. Two days after the protest, the video of her fighting the ty’lok goes viral, and Alex finds herself uncomfortably close to the spotlight. Some particularly dedicated internet sleuths dig up other photos of her floating around, the majority of which are shots of her accompanying Supergirl at various disaster scenes, and it’s not long before the internet at large puts the clues together, unofficially identifying her as the director of a shadowy government cabal who either hunt or protect aliens, depending on who’s posting the story.

It gets big enough to attract some actual mainstream media attention – though not from CatCo or any of its affiliates, and Alex isn’t sure if that order came from James or Lena – and Alex spends most of her time over the next few days placating angry congressmen and bullying the director of the FBI into publicly claiming her as an agent. It’s a transparent ploy to anyone with even a passing familiarity with governmental agencies, but it muddies the waters enough that the open speculation dies down.

It’s a terrible week for Alex to quit drinking, and she comes close to caving more than once. Finally, after a particularly impolite conference call with several high-ranking politicians who’d never learned to ask _or_ answer question properly, she leaves the DEO feeling tired and angry and reckless, and gets as far as buying a bottle of scotch on her way home.  

But when she storms into her apartment, frustrated and in the mood for self-destruction, the image of Lena sitting at her table and watching her with disappointment in her eyes creeps up to sear itself into her brain. It hits her harder than she thought it would, and when Imaginary Lena is joined by Imaginary Kara, standing by her shoulder with her arms crossed and a sad frown on her face, Alex digs up what’s left of her resolve.

Exhausted and angry – at herself, at her job, at the city in general – she shoves the bottle to the very back of a little-used cupboard and goes to bed.

Despite her exhaustion, sleep won’t come. She’s barely slept all week, but she’s too keyed up to settle, and the temptation of the alcohol in the cupboard is tugging at her subconscious. She twists and turns for almost an hour before she gives up and kicks the covers off, hunting around for a jacket to tug on over her loose sleep clothes. She shoves her phone into her pocket and swipes her keys from the table, heading for the door but refusing to dwell on where she’s going.

**…**

Lena lets her into her apartment wordlessly and without judgment. It’s late, close enough to midnight that Alex arriving should have pulled Lena out of bed, but her laptop is open and lit on the arm of the couch and her favourite blanket is crumpled across the seat, clear evidence that she hadn’t been anywhere near asleep.

Alex sweeps past her, feeling unaccountably antsy, and catches herself halfway towards Lena’s alcohol shelf before she stops. She whirls around to find Lena watching her, arms wrapped around herself and eyes dark and unfathomable. She hasn’t moved far from the door, almost like she’s expecting Alex to turn around and leave again at any moment, and Alex can see the same uncertainty that’s sitting in her chest reflected in Lena’s eyes.

She’s never missed Kara more than she does right now. She feels like she’s stumbling her way towards something in the dark, and she desperately needs to talk this through with her sister, the way they’ve always done. Alex looks at the expression in Lena’s eyes and wonders if she’s missing her best friend for similar reasons, then almost laughs out loud. This whole situation would likely never have started if Kara hadn’t left, but because she did, neither she nor Lena have any idea what they’re doing. They’re like children, smearing cake and crayons all over the walls the second they’re left without supervision.

The laugh that actually does escape her mouth at that thought is high and borderline hysterical, and the sound of it is enough to push Lena towards her. She catches Alex’s arm as she paces, looking concerned, and Alex spins and presses forward to kiss her, open-mouthed and hard, dropping her hands to Lena’s hips and backing her up against the wall, desperate for familiar territory. Lena melts into it willingly, one hand going to Alex’s cheek and the other one fisting in her shirt, but Alex’s heart isn’t in it and it takes Lena less than three seconds to notice.

The hand on her cheek presses her backwards gently, and Lena pulls away until she can look Alex in the eyes. “Alex…” she starts softly, keeping her other hand curled in Alex’s shirt to stop her moving away. She trails off, her eyes flicking between Alex’s, and whatever she sees prompts her to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep,” Alex admits quietly, dropping her gaze so she’s looking anywhere but Lena’s eyes. “I haven’t…I threw out those bottles after you left and I’ve had a shitty week and my apartment is too quiet.” The _without you_ goes unsaid, but Alex suspects that Lena hears it anyway.

Lena doesn’t speak, just eases her hand up into Alex’s hair to scratch her nails lightly across her scalp and guide her head down into the crook of her neck. Alex lets her, pressing her face against Lena’s skin and shutting her eyes, sliding her hands from Lena’s hips to her back until her arms are wrapped around her waist. She can feel Lena’s pulse against her cheek, the rhythm steady and more soothing that Alex expected. She’s reminded suddenly of a much younger Kara, admitting quietly after a nightmare that she’d used the pattern of Alex’s heartbeat to ground and calm herself, and the ache in her chest where Kara used to be pangs sharply with longing.

“Do you want to stay here?” Lena murmurs after a long pause, her fingers toying with the short hairs at the back of Alex’s neck as Alex sways slightly on her feet. Alex takes a surprisingly shaky breath and nods into her shoulder, not trusting herself to speak. “Okay. C’mon.”

Lena unwinds Alex’s arms from around her waist and takes her hand, tugging her towards her bedroom. She pauses at the couch to pick up her laptop with her free hand, and Alex grimaces.

“You work too much,” Alex says, only half joking, but Lena shakes her head.

“I only have a couple more emails to send,” she promises as she leads Alex into her bedroom. She doesn’t bother with the light; the glow of the laptop screen is bright enough to see by, and Alex is familiar enough with the room that she could probably navigate it without sight anyway.

Lena sets the laptop down on her bedside table and tugs the covers back one-handed, keeping her other hand tangled with Alex’s until she turns to face her, stepping closer to slide her jacket off her shoulders. Alex’s hand automatically goes to the hem of Lena’s shirt before she remembers that they’re not doing that, but Lena just smiles at her and urges her down into the bed.

Alex wriggles herself under the covers and scoots over, giving Lena enough space to climb in after her, which she does without the hesitation Alex was half-expecting. Lena props herself up against the pillows with her back pressed to the headboard, and reaches down to brush the hair from Alex’s eyes as Alex blinks up at her.

“I really do have to finish these, but they won’t take long. You should sleep,” she says, her voice soft in the dimness. Her hand slips down to cup Alex’s cheek for a moment before she twists away to pick up her laptop, and the warmth of her palm lingers on Alex’s skin like a brand.

Alex curls herself against Lena’s hip as she settles the laptop on her lap and starts typing. The soft tap of the keys is surprisingly soothing, and Alex is halfway to nodding off when she’s struck by the domesticity of the moment. She has a single, vivid memory of being in this exact position with Maggie, drifting to sleep listening to the quiet rattle of her typing reports, and the similarities between that moment and this one hit her like a physical blow. The tiny, battered box in her chest, already just barely held together by willpower and denial, cracks and crumbles, flooding Alex’s heart with all the things she’s been shoving down since the first time Lena pulled her into this room.

Lena’s smile. Her laugh. The soft, desperate noise she makes when Alex finds exactly the right spot on her body. The way she clings to Alex instinctively when she comes apart beneath her. The feelings riot through Alex’s chest, shifting the axis of their orbit enough to unbalance her completely. Kara has been gone for ten months, Alex has been sleeping with Lena for eight of them, and she lies beside her and realises for the first time that she might just be a little bit in love with her.

Following rapidly on the heels of that revelation is the one that Alex hates the weird, wordless limbo they’re currently existing in. She’s been properly aware of it for less than thirty seconds and she’s already exhausted by it, enough that she takes a deep breath and surrenders to the most reckless parts of herself, the parts that jump off buildings with nothing but the trust that her sister will be there to catch her, and opens her mouth to speak.

“Lena?”

“Mmm?” She’s still typing, frowning at something on the screen and blissfully unaware of the way Alex’s world is shifting underneath her.

“What are we doing?” Alex asks softly, and Lena’s hands still over the keyboard.

“Well one of us _should_ be sleeping,” she says with a light smile, but her eyes stay fixed on the screen. It’s an escape hatch disguised as a joke, a chance for Alex to back away from the topic that they’ve studiously avoided until now. Alex isn’t sure if Lena’s offering it for her own benefit or Alex’s, but in the face of the revelation she’s just had, Alex doesn’t think she _can_ go back to avoiding it.

“Lena,” Alex says softly, so softly, and Lena breathes out through her nose and lets her head fall back against the headboard.

“I don’t know.” She sighs again and twists away, sliding the laptop onto the bedside table then wriggling down until she’s flat on her back, eye-level with Alex. “What do you want us to be doing?”

“You’re the only thing in my life that makes sense,” Alex murmurs, groping blindly for the right words to articulate the storm in her chest. Behind Lena, the laptop screen dims then goes black, leaving them in an inky twilight, and Alex finds that the darkness actually helps. “Everyone else left, but you… you’re always _here_ and I can’t…” She sucks in a shuddering breath, surprised at the way the words are sticking in her throat.

“Alex…” Lena breathes, her hand gliding through the darkness to land gently on Alex’s face.

“I don’t want to go back to what we had. I just… I need… I want all of you.”

“I think you’ve had that for a while,” Lena admits softly, her thumb tracing little arcs on Alex’s skin. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can’t seem to stay away from you.”

“What do _you_ want?” Alex asks, and Lena’s hand on her stills.

“This,” Lena answers simply. “You, here. Always.” There’s no hesitation when she says it, no indecision or doubt, and that, more than anything else, is what convinces Alex they’re going to be okay.

Alex reaches forward, hooking her hand around Lena’s hip to drag her forward until they’re pressed together. Lena finds Alex’s mouth in the darkness, pulling her into a gentle kiss that doesn’t stay gentle as they shift against each other. Lena slides her leg over Alex’s hip and pushes herself up until she’s straddling Alex’s stomach, pressing down on her warmly. Undressing takes some manoeuvring, but they manage, and the feeling of Lena’s skin against hers feels a lot like coming home.

Their kisses devolve slowly until they’re not so much kissing as just pressed together, open-mouthed and panting, and when Alex peaks and falls, it’s with Lena’s name on her lips and Lena’s eyes inches from her own.

**…**

Alex wakes up the next morning warm and comfortable, wrapped around Lena so completely that she’s not actually sure where her hands are. She untangles herself gently, managing not to wake Lena in the process, but finds herself captivated by the sight of Lena in the morning light. Unable to resist, Alex traces her finger over Lena’s skin, starting at her jaw and trailing up over the curve of her cheekbones until Lena shifts sleepily and opens one eye.

“Good morning,” she murmurs, smiling languidly. She reaches up to catch Alex’s hand and laces their fingers together, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Hi,” Alex breathes, leaning down to brush a lazy kiss against her lips. It feels different in the morning, like something about the sunlight has made their confessions more real. Her feelings for Lena were a thing born of the night time, of fleeting whispers in the darkness, and there was something almost reassuring about how they lingered in her heart even in the bright light of the day.

Lena’s thoughts are apparently running along similar but less certain lines. “Are you okay?” she starts, blinking up at Alex shyly. “You were sort of agitated when you got here last night.”

The actual question she’s asking goes unspoken, but Alex hears it anyway. “I was, but… I meant it, Lena.” Alex isn’t quite ready to say the word itself, but she makes sure Lena hears it when she leans down. “I meant everything I said.”

Lena’s face melts into a grin tinged with relief at that, and something about her expression prompts Alex to ask,

“You’ve known for a while, haven’t you? About…” Alex wiggles their joined hands, and Lena’s gaze slides away bashfully. “How long?”

Lena huffs out a small laugh. “I don’t know when it changed, but I noticed when James told me you were hurt and I nearly threw up.”

Alex grimaces at the memory. “I’m still sorry about that,” she says, but Lena just smiles at her.

“Try not to do it again and I’ll forgive you,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Alex’s shoulder, then shifting until she’s sitting up. “Can I have my laptop?” She reaches over Alex toward it, and Alex rolls her eyes.

“We’re gonna talk about your workaholism at some point,” she says, but stretches to get it anyway. Her fingers hit the touchpad as she picks it up, waking the screen and giving Alex a glimpse of Lena’s inbox.

“I just need to check if the idiot in Tokyo did what I told him to. It won’t take…Alex?”

Alex doesn’t respond, her attention entirely taken up by a message that came in at 3.42am. Her eyes had caught on the subject line, and the short preview had been enough for her to open the full message.

“Lena…” Alex breathes, horrified by what she’s reading. “This is a death threat. This is… a really specific death threat.” Lena presses herself against Alex’s side so she can see the screen, then shakes her head.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she says, lifting the laptop out of Alex’s grip, and Alex turns to stare at her incredulously.

“Lena—”

“Honestly, it’s okay. He’s just pissed off that I won’t take his meetings anymore,” she says, sounding far too nonchalant, and Alex stares at her incredulously.

“You know who sent this? Have there been others?”

“No, I just recognise his… hyperbolic conversational style.”

“Who is it?” Alex asks, but Lena just looks away. “Lena, who is it?”

“Alex…” she starts, but Alex moves her head to meet her eye and holds her gaze until she sighs. “You’ve met him,” she says finally, and Alex frowns, digging through her memory.

“That idiot fascist? Greyson?” Lena doesn’t reply, but Alex can see the answer on her face. “That sociopathic… I’m calling it in. He’ll be in a cell under the desert in an hour.”

 “You can’t,” Lena says, catching Alex’s hand before it gets to her phone. “This city’s a powder keg as it is. What do you think will happen if the face of #earthfirst goes mysteriously missing? It’d cause a riot.”

“I don’t care,” Alex says mulishly, unclenching her jaw with some effort, and Lena smiles at her fondly.

“Yes you do,” Lena says, moving her hand to Alex’s cheek and leaning in to brush her lips over Alex’s jaw. “Honestly, it’s okay. I can handle him. I’ll be fine.”

“Lena…”

“I appreciate your concern, Alex, I really do, but I’ll be fine. I promise.” Lena’s lips move to her mouth, drawing her into a slow, deliberate kiss, and Alex knows she’s being distracted, but gives into it anyway.

“Fine,” Alex murmurs against her lips, but by the time she’s left the apartment, she’s made a new plan.

**…**

Jess looks up with a frown as Alex steps off the elevator, opening her mouth to stop her, but whatever she’s going to say dies on her lips when Alex’s companions follow her into the hallway. Jess, to her credit, recovers quickly, but she still eyes the three obviously-armed agents trailing after Alex as she approaches.

“Is she in there?” Alex asks, snapping Jess’s attention back to her, and the assistant nods.

“She’s alone. Is there something wrong?”

“Your boss is being a stubborn idiot. I’m working on it.”

Jess’s face relaxes into something like relief. “She told you about the threats. I’ve been telling her she should.”

Alex is almost to the door before her words register and she spins back around. “Wait, threat ** _s_**? As is more than one?” Jess looks stricken, but Alex presses forward. “She only told me about the one I saw. How many have there been?”

“If she didn’t say anything…” Jess says haltingly, but Alex leans over her desk and lowers her voice.

“I’m trying to keep her safe, Jess. How many?”

Jess’s eyes flick between Alex and the door to Lena’s office for a long moment before she gives in. “Three over the last week. Four, if she’s got another one since yesterday. I’ll send you the file. _Please_ don’t tell her you got it from me.”

“Thank you, Jess, I mean it,” Alex murmurs, horrified all over again and working to make sure it wasn’t showing on her face. She steps back to head for the door, motioning for her agents to follow her.

Lena is slumped over her laptop at her desk, head cradled in one hand and glazed eyes staring at one point on the screen. She doesn’t react to the sound of the doors opening, but she jerks up when Alex moves in her peripheral vision. She relaxes again as recognition flashes across her face, but she greets Alex with a tight smile.

“Alex, I really don’t have time to—oh.” She straightens in her chair and stops talking abruptly when she notices that Alex isn’t alone, her eyes narrowing. “What’s this?”

“These are Agents Lawson, Cortez, and Fischer,” Alex tells her, gesturing to each agent in turn. “Agent Kohli is downstairs talking to the head of your security, I’ll introduce you to her before I go. One of them will be with you any time you’re not here or at your apartment.”

“Will they,” Lena says flatly. She reclines back in her chair, arms folded across her chest and face carefully blank. The chill she’s radiating is almost palpable, but Alex ignores it and pushes on.

“They will. We’re also vetting and enhancing the security measures at both locations.”

“And if I object to these arrangements, _Director_?” Lena asks, eyes glinting and tongue curving dangerously around Alex’s title.

“They happen anyway, just more covertly,” Alex says, matching Lena’s glare with a defiant one of her own.

“So you’re going to have them follow me around like a criminal?” Lena’s voice is as frosty as her body language, and Alex can feel the agents behind her shifting uncertainly. She had warned them that Lena wasn’t going to like this idea, but it’s difficult to truly prepare someone for the reality of an irritated Luthor. Alex has spent enough time around Lena to be mostly immune to the icy Luthor façade, but the uncomfortable shuffling behind her says that her agents aren’t quite as unaffected. Alex grits her teeth; this arrangement won’t work if Lena can just steamroll over whoever Alex assigns to watch her, and if they have to operate in secrecy from Lena herself, they’ll be that much less effective. She needs Lena to agree.

“Guys, go and join Kohli. I need a private word with Ms Luthor,” Alex orders, and the agents behind her file out quietly.

The moment the door swings shut behind them, some of the tension leaks out of Lena’s posture, and her mask of icy disinterest slips.

“Alex, this really isn’t necessary,” she starts, but Alex shakes her head.

“It is _absolutely_ necessary, Lena. Greyson explicitly threatened to kill you, and he has enough fanatical morons marching to his tune to have me worried.”

“Alex…”

“Why did you lie to me about the other threats?” Alex asks, and Lena freezes.

“How do you know about those?”

“Brainy did some digging,” Alex lies, although she makes a mental note to make sure he actually does dig further into Greyson when she gets back to the DEO. They should have known a week ago that he was sending threats. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I told you about every death threat I got, we wouldn’t have time for anything else,” Lena says with a light smile. It’s a deflection, and Alex crosses her arms with a frown, levelling an unimpressed glare at Lena until she sinks back into her chair. “I didn’t want you to worry. And I didn’t want you risking your job going after him for it.”

“I wouldn’t have risked…” Alex starts, but Lena shoots her a look and Alex changes tack, because they both know she would have. In a heartbeat. “Then take the protection. Let me keep you safe.”

“I don’t want you putting your agents in danger for me.”

“It’s their job, Lena. Just let me—”

“I’m not worth them risking their lives!” Lena cries, and Alex freezes, her heart constricting at the absolute certainty on Lena’s face. “I’m not worth them. I’m not.”

Alex stares at her for a long moment, then moves around the desk. Lena watches her approach with well-disguised apprehension, but she doesn’t move away. Alex reaches her chair and spins it to face her then leans down, cupping Lena’s face with both hands and kissing her until she feels the tension leak out of her body.

“You are not worthless, Lena Luthor,” Alex whispers, pulling back to look her in the eye. “And I will tell you that every day until you believe it, but I need you to let me do this. I can’t lose you, too.” Dropping one hand to brace herself on the armrest of the chair, Alex leans in again to brush their lips together. “Please, Lena. Let me protect you.”

“Okay,” she whispers, her voice rough and her eyes shimmering, and when Alex goes to drop her hand from her cheek, Lena catches it and pulls her closer. Alex smiles and leans down, bringing their lips together again. She’s still getting used to kissing Lena just for the sake of it, without it being a precursor to pressing her against something and making her scream, but it’s a change she’s quickly adjusting to.

“Your agents are waiting,” Lena says softly after a long moment, her lips brushing against Alex’s skin, and Alex smiles.

“They’re very patient,” she says, but straightens anyway, offering Lena her hand. “C’mon. I’ll introduce you to them properly. Please try not to terrify them this time.”

“I make no promises,” Lena say dryly, but she leans into the hand Alex settles on the small of her back, and doesn’t pull away when they leave the office.

**…**

Alex leaves the four agents at L-Corp with only general instructions, trusting them to work the details out between them, and when she heads to Lena apartment that night, she passes Lawson, stationed discreetly by the elevator with the sports section. The doorman is eyeing the newcomer warily, but Lawson ignores him, and doesn’t react beyond a respectful nod when Alex passes. She hadn’t outright told the team about her relationship with Lena, but her agents were mostly smart enough to read between the lines.

Lena is on her laptop when Alex gets to her apartment, but it doesn’t take Alex long to entice her away from it. They’re still working out how they fit together, but it’s surprisingly easy. They cook dinner together without setting anything on fire and then curl around each other on the couch, arguing playfully about what to watch until Alex caves in to _Star Trek_. They get most of the way through one episode before Alex’s wandering hands become distracting enough that Lena tugs her up and into her bedroom. They come together again and again and fall asleep wrapped around each other, and the thought of doing this every night doesn’t terrify Alex the way it used to.

**…**

It’s still dark outside when Alex’s phone chimes from the bedside table, three times in quick succession, and Alex groans and buries her head against Lena’s shoulder before she rolls over to retrieve it.

“Wha’s’it?” Lena asks, her voice husky and slurred from sleep.

“I have to go into work,” Alex says, squinting at the message on her phone, and Lena frowns.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, but Alex shakes her head.

“Something tripped Winn’s planetary proximity alarm. I just have to make sure we’re not being invaded again.” She presses a quick kiss to Lena’s lips and extracts herself from the embrace. “I won’t be long,” she promises, but Lena tugs her back for another kiss before she lets her go.

**…**

“What is it, Brainy?” Alex asks as she strides into the ops centre, dodging through the unusually high number of analysis scurrying around to stand next to him.

“An unidentified craft broke atmosphere approximately ninety seconds ago,” Brainy tells her, spinning around to face her and bringing his hands together. “I’m running scans now, but it doesn’t appear to be big enough for more than two human-sized occupants.”

“So no invasion force then. Good,” Alex says, relaxing marginally and turning to head for the armoury. “I’ll scramble a tac team and go meet our guest.”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary. The craft has landed approximately five miles from the city, but I’m picking up a smaller incoming target,” Brainy says, sounding far too calm about the development that freezes Alex in her tracks. “It looks like they’re heading here.”

“ _What_?” Alex glances at his screen to see a small red dot rapidly approaching their location. “Weapons, now!” she barks to the room in general, sending every agent within earshot scrambling and drawing her sidearm as she heads for the sky door. “Brainy, how long?”

“Five seconds!” he calls back, but even as he says it, Alex catches sight of the figure in the sky, hurtling towards them. It’s too dark and too fast to make out any details, but it’s definitely heading for them, and Alex can taste the bitter flood of adrenaline in her mouth as the agents around her tense up.

“Hold your fire until I say!” Alex orders, raising her gun as the figure swoops into the building and lands heavily at the top of the stairs. “Freeze! Do not mo…”

The words die on her lips as the figure straightens. Her hair is longer and with lighter highlights that weren’t there before, and the colours of the tunic she’s wearing are wrong, but the symbol on chest is achingly familiar, and Alex’s arms drop instinctively as her brain catches up to what her eyes are seeing.

“Kara?” Alex whispers, hearing the clatter of her gun dropping from nerveless fingers. She takes one, faltering step forward, just barely aware of the agents around her lowering their weapons, and Kara’s face splits into a tired, relieved smile.

“Alex,” Kara says, tears visible in her eyes, and the sound of her voice is like a bell striking the clearest of notes somewhere deep in Alex’s heart. Alex trips forward on shaky legs, and Kara meets her a little less than halfway. They slam together with enough force to drive the breath from Alex’s lungs and she’s openly crying in front of a dozen of her agents, but in that moment, wrapped in her sister’s arms, Alex couldn’t care less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is gonna go fine. kara will definitely be totally fine with what everyone's been doing while she was gone. this will in no way create conflict at all.
> 
> pls comment or [yell at me](http://the-ominous-owl.tumblr.com) so i know i haven't scared you off.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like this took 84 years and i'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, but i feel like i've left y'all hanging for too long so i'm just releasing it into the wild. thanks for sticking with it and all the amazing comments and messages, they really keep me going.  
> apologies for any typos.

**vii.**

In that moment, it goes like this, with Alex openly sobbing into her sister’s shoulder, embracing her tightly enough that her bruises and not-quite-healed shoulder are protesting loudly in tandem. Alex ignores them, ignores the soft shuffling of the agents around them, ignores the niggling little voice in the back of her head whispering that this changes everything. She has her sister back, real and solid and right in front of her, and in the face of that, nothing else seems to matter.

Alex had forgotten how Kara hugs, tightly and with her whole body, and right now she’s clinging to Alex like she’s afraid she’ll disappear. She smells like something exotic and the fabric of her clothes is different to anything Alex has touched before, but underneath it all she feels like _Kara_ , like home and safety and love, and Alex sinks into the feeling and refuses to let go. Her arms ache with how tightly they’re wrapped around Kara’s ribs and they’re swaying slightly on the spot, but her fingers are curled in the ends of Kara’s hair for the first time in almost a year and the sting of her absence in Alex’s chest is dissolving down to nothing.

Alex isn’t sure how long they stand like that, clinging together and dampening each other with tears, but eventually, Kara tilts her face up from where it had been buried in Alex’s neck. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. So much,” Alex whispers, and Kara’s arms tighten around her in response.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Kara murmurs into her ear. “When I got your message, I thought…”

Alex picks her head up so she can look at her, confused. “Message? I didn’t send you a message. I can’t.”

A throat clears somewhere behind them, and Alex remembers suddenly that they’re in the middle of the DEO and she’s supposed to be in charge. She steps away from Kara, slowly and with deep reluctance, only to discover that the area around them is almost totally deserted. The agents that had gathered at Alex’s call are gone, and the few analysts remaining in the ops centre are politely ignoring them, backs turned and heads down. The only person anywhere near them is Brainy, watching them from under the balcony with Alex’s gun held awkwardly in his hand.

“The message came from me, actually,” he says, edging closer and offering Alex her weapon. “You dropped this.”

Kara smiles at him as Alex accepts and holsters her gun, and it takes a second for the implications of his words to fully register. When they do, Alex stiffens, and the only thing that stops her from stepping towards him is Kara’s arm slung around her waist.

“Wait, you’ve been able to contact her this whole time?” Alex demands, angry beyond words. Kara’s messages have always been one-way – the complexities of the calculations required to send messages back were beyond any Earth computer – and Alex’s inability to reply to her had been one of the hardest aspects of Kara’s absence.

“No, it was quite complicated,” Brainy says, seemingly unruffled by Alex’s irritation. “It took me almost a week of constant calculations, and I wasn’t sure I’d actually succeeded until Kara arrived here.”

“The message was pretty degraded by the time it got to us,” Kara explains, fiddling briefly with a band around her wrist. “It took a while to decipher it, but when we did…” The band flares with light, sprouting a holographic display that just says one word.

_Alex._

“With the effort it must have taken to send that, I assumed something must be wrong,” Kara says softly, linking her hand with Alex’s. “I was terrified I wouldn’t get here in time.”

 _I’m fine,_ Alex wants to say, but the words won’t come. Her chest is a storm of emotions – joy at having Kara back, dismay that it was fear that brought her here, and behind it all, the quiet but relentless voice at the back of her head whispering _change, change, change_ like a heartbeat.

Instead of answering, Alex just squeezes Kara’s hand and smiles at her with as much reassurance as she can manage before turning to Brainy.  “Thank you, Brainy.”

“You’re welcome, though I cannot take all the credit. Ms Luthor’s assistance was invaluable, and—”

“Oh my god, Lena,” Alex breathes, cutting Brainy off and turning to face Kara. “We have to go see Lena.”

Alarm flashes across Kara’s face. “Is she okay? Did something happen to her?”

“No, no, she’s fine. But please, we have to go see her. She has to see you.” Alex isn’t sure where the urgency for Lena to know that Kara had returned is coming from, but the need to see them together, in the same place at the same time, is immediate and overwhelming.

Kara tilts her head, confused by Alex’s insistence, but nods. “Okay. I’ll have to get changed, first,” she says, glancing almost sadly down at the crest over her heart, and Alex remembers with a jolt that Kara doesn’t know yet.

“No you don’t,” she says slowly, carefully, earning herself another confused look. “Lena knows, Kara. She’s known for a while.”

Kara reacts like the words are physical blows, taking a step back and shrinking down into herself. She looks for a moment like she’s going to be sick, then asks in a small, scared voice, “Does she hate me?”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Alex says, instinctively pulling Kara into another hug. “She could never hate you.”

“Is she angry? She should be angry. I should have told her a long time ago,” Kara mumbles into her shoulder, and Alex squeezes her tightly before stepping back.

“She might be angry,” Alex admits with a wry smile. “But she’ll still be happy to see you. She missed you.”

“I missed her,” Kara says with a wistful smile, sparking a twinge in Alex’s chest that she violently forces down.

“She’s probably at her office by now,” Alex says, glancing out the window. The sun is up but just barely clear of the horizon, unreasonably early by anyone else’s standards, but recently Lena had been trading more early mornings for fewer late nights. It was a compromise Alex had talked her into after finding her asleep at her desk one too many times, slumped uncomfortably over work that usually could have waited until morning.

“While you do that, I will coordinate the securing and retrieval of your vessel,” Brainy says, bringing his fingertips together and politely ignoring the way Kara wipes her eyes on her sleeve before smiling at him again.

“Thank you, Brainy,” she says before turning to Alex. “Are you ready?”

Alex steels herself and nods, fighting against the sudden desire to flee. “Let’s do this.”

Kara opens her arms and catches Alex in a firm embrace, and despite the pit yawning open in her stomach, Alex can’t supress the gleeful smile that creeps onto her face when Kara pulls both of them up into the sky.

**…**

They touch down on the balcony of Lena’s office lightly, but Alex still staggers slightly, unused to flying after Kara’s long absence. The windows are still cloudy and pebbled with dew, obscuring Alex’s sight of the office, but there’s a colourful Lena-shaped blur where the desk should be, and even the vague outline of her is enough for Alex’s heart to do its customary flutter.

Kara shifts nervously from foot to foot, twisting her hands in front of her stomach, and Alex puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Just…wait here for a second, okay? I need to…” Warn her? Apologise? Alex isn’t sure, but it had hit her on the flight over that at some point soon, she and Lena were going to have to tell Kara how things had shifted in her absence, explain what they’d been doing while she’d been gone. Alex knows with a deep, bone-aching certainty that that conversation will irrevocably change things, and she desperately needs one last moment with Lena before it happens.

Kara tilts her head but nods, melting into the shadowed part of the balcony, out of easy sight as Alex moves towards the door.

Lena startles and whips around when Alex pushes the door open, but her face relaxes in to a confused smile when she recognises her visitor.

“Alex. How did you…?” she starts, standing. She’s already kicked her heels off, and the sight of her walking towards her in stockinged feet is enough to make Alex smile. “Were you so desperate to avoid my security detail that you _climbed the building_?” She looks alarmed at the idea, but Alex grins despite her nervousness.

“No, I… had help. Lena, listen…” She catches Lena’s hands as they move towards her face and presses them to her chest, aware for the first time in almost a year that Kara is just outside, and the door is open enough that she’d be able to hear them even without superhearing. “I just… I need to…”

“Are you okay?” Lena asks, frowning, but before Alex can answer, Lena’s gaze shifts to something behind her. “Is there someone with you?”

Glancing over her shoulder, Alex sees a Kara-shaped blur edging towards the door and realises that her time is up. “Yeah, and it’s fine, okay? It’s good. Please, just….” But Alex sees Lena’s face change, sees the moment Kara must appear in the door, and Alex drops her hands and steps aside.

“Oh my god, _Kara,_ ” Lena breathes, her hand going to her chest.

“Hi,” Kara says, smiling almost shyly and taking a hesitant step forward. She’s tugging her fingers like she’s nervous, but when Lena takes half a shaky step towards her she moves forward, arms twitching like she wants to hug Lena but isn’t sure if she’ll accept it. They stop an arm’s length apart, Lena’s eyes flicking from Kara’s face to the crest on her tunic and back.  Slowly, like it’s moving of its own volition, Lena’s hand comes up until her fingers are ghosting over the stylized S, and Kara tenses up like she’s preparing for a blow. But Lena’s eyes flick back up to Kara’s face, and whatever Kara sees in them makes her relax, makes her sway ever-so-slightly into the hand over her heart, and Alex realises, suddenly and with aching clarity, that she can’t be here. She can’t be here, because they’re not just Kara and Lena, they’re Kara-and-Lena, and have been since they met. Kara, with her shaky, awestruck smile, and Lena, with her tear-smudged mascara and shining eyes, drawn together like magnets, the way they’ve always been.

Alex watches them lose themselves in each other, an entire conversation being spoken with just their eyes, and burns with the realisation that no, she really can’t be here.

“I can’t… I have to go,” Alex stutters out, and two sets of eyes snap to look at her. At least one of them looks like they’d forgotten she was in the room, and Alex’s heart twists in her chest even as she settles her face into a smiling mask.

“Alex, wait,” Kara starts, while Lena just steps towards her, but Alex backs up rapidly until her back hits the door.

“No, it’s fine. You guys… You guys have a lot to talk about. Stay here, catch up. I’ll see you later.”

She slips out, pulling the door firmly closed behind her and turning to find a gun pointed in her direction. Alex freezes, hands going automatically to her own sidearm before she recognises her assailant and relaxes.

“Stand down, Kohli. It’s me.”

“Director?” Kohli asks, lowering her weapon but clearly confused. “How did you get past me?”

“I had help,” Alex says shortly, desperate to get away from whatever was happening behind her in Lena’s office. “Jess, you should probably clear the rest of her schedule for today.”

“But…” Jess starts, then stops and considers the look on Alex’s face. She glances almost mournfully down at the agenda on her tablet, then sighs. “I can do that. Why?” she asks, but Alex has already pushed herself away from the door and is halfway to the elevator. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Alex calls as the elevator doors slide shut behind her. She holds herself together the whole way to the ground floor and beyond, because Kara is back and has superhearing and will definitely hear her if she breaks down now. She makes is out of the building and starts walking, resolutely putting one foot in front of the other and resisting the urge to look back. She half expects to hear the thud of Kara landing next to her, or the click of Lena’s high heels following her, and she makes it almost four blocks before she stops checking, unable to take the ache that pulses through her heart every time she glances over her shoulder to find the street empty.

**…**

Alex’s feet take her back to her apartment in a haze. It’s a long walk, and her phone buzzes every couple of minutes, but Alex ignores it. She doesn’t want to know what it says, doesn’t want to see Lena’s inevitable ‘ _we need to talk’_ or Kara’s _‘how could you_ ’. If she doesn’t look, it’s Schrodinger’s Phone – she and Lena are both over and not, she and Kara are both okay and not, and if Alex doesn’t see it, it can’t hurt.

Her apartment is too still, too quiet. The scent of Lena’s perfume lingers in the air, faint enough that Alex isn’t sure if she’s imagining it or not, but it makes her heart hurt either way. She should change out of her uniform – the one message she had read was from Vasquez, all but ordering her away from the DEO for the day – but she gets as far as unclipping the holster from her thigh before she stops. She can’t bring herself to uncover her skin. Undressing would mean looking at the marks Lena left scattered across her body, and Alex isn’t sure she can do that without falling apart. Instead, she paces, restless and unable to settle, until the silence is too much and she digs her helmet out and swipes the key for her motorcycle off the table. She leaves her phone on the arm of the couch on purpose, desperate to put off whatever it might tell her for just a little longer.

It’s drizzly and overcast outside, the distant rumble of thunder heralding the arrival of the storm that’s been threatening for days. It’s terrible weather for riding, but it suits her mood, and Alex roams aimlessly through the city for hours. She goes far enough that she has to stop for fuel, and the gas station attendant looks at her with concerned eyes when she stumbles in to pay.

“Hey, you okay, lady?” he asks as he tries to hand her the change, but Alex just laughs, brokenly and far too loud, and shakes her head.

“Keep it,” she tells him, leaving the boy staring after her as she exits, the twenty-dollar bill hanging limply from his hand.

In the end, inexplicably, she finds herself in the bar where she and Lena started, sitting hunched on a stool over the bar and nursing her third scotch. The bartender is the same one from that night, and he’d flinched in recognition when his eyes eventually found their way to her face but otherwise made no sign he remembered her beyond eyeing her warily as she ordered. It’s fitting, in a cyclical sort of way, but Alex is too sore to have any appreciation for the symmetry of it all.

The alcohol sears its way down her throat in a way it hasn’t since she’d been busy flunking out of med school, and it takes Alex a glass and a half to realise that most of the burn is probably guilt. She should be overjoyed at Kara’s return – and there’s a large part of her that is – but she can’t quite rid herself of the look on Lena’s face when Kara had smiled at her, or the light in Kara’s eyes when Lena hadn’t pulled away.

Alex hadn’t ever really considered what Kara coming back would mean for her and Lena. By the time their relationship progressed into something she’d have to explain, Kara’s return had become an abstract concept, a distant fantasy that Alex indulged only in her rare moments of optimism. Once, as she was lying in bed with Lena’s weight draped over her side and her breath washing warmly over her collarbone, Alex had dared to imagine a future where she had both. A future where she’d come home to house with a porch, with Lena waiting for her and Kara in the den playing with a child with Alex’s eyes and Lena’s cheekbones, but the image had ignited such an acute stab of longing that Alex had gasped and ached and never done it again.

But now, with the alcohol burning her throat and numbing the confused welter of emotions in her chest, Alex is forced to examine the two ideas together, side by side. Kara had taken pieces of both of them when she’d left, ripped out tiny fragments of their hearts to go with her to the stars, and Alex is terrified that what they’d found without her was nothing more than their jagged edges fitting together. Because Kara was back now, bringing those pieces back with her, and without the vacuum of her absence pulling them inexorably together, Alex isn’t sure where that leaves them. There’s part of her – a tiny, flawed part – that wishes that Kara had stayed away just a little longer, given Alex and Lena just a little more time to set, to settle into what they’d found. She wishes for more time and feels guilty for it, because _Kara is back_ and that should be all that matters.

It should be all that matters, but it can’t be, because Kara is back and Alex has been sleeping with her best friend. Kara hasn’t ever been possessive of Lena – she’d been thrilled when Lena had slowly integrated herself into their little group, and she’d been the first one to push Lena towards dating James – but it still feels like a betrayal, like a violation of some code of sisterhood. Alex is terrified of Kara’s reaction, because if there’s one thing in the universe that she can’t handle, it’s Kara’s disappointment. If she’s forced to choose between them, between the sister she loves and the woman she craves like nothing else, Alex isn’t sure which way she’ll fall. She isn’t sure of anything, except that the choice, if it comes, will break her.

Which implies that the choice will be hers alone, but there’s another possibility, one that Alex has been running from since she’d left the two of them in Lena’s office, gazing at each other like nothing else existed. There’s always been a tiny, anxious voice in the back of Alex’s mind that had wondered if she was just a placeholder for Lena, a warm body to distract herself with until the Danvers that she really wanted came back. The voice had dwindled down to near-silence in recent weeks, smothered by their mutual confession of feelings and the comfortable rhythm they’d fallen into, but watching Lena and Kara find each other again, watching the re-establishing of the connection the two of them have always shared, has brought it back with a vengeance. They’re Kara-and-Lena and always have been, bound together by a mutual understanding and a shared willingness to risk everything for each other, and Alex doesn’t know if she can compete with that sort of bond.

There are too many choices, too many variables and not enough good outcomes, so Alex sits and lingers, desperate to stay in the weird limbo where nothing hurts yet for just a little longer.

**…**

Alex doesn’t know how long she’s been there, stewing in a confusion of joy and guilt and longing and hope, when the floor creaks softly behind her. A body slips itself onto the stool beside her, but Alex doesn’t react until long fingers reach over to pluck the glass from between her hands.

“Hey—” she starts, annoyed, but stops when she finds herself gazing into Lena’s grey-green eyes. Something tight in Alex’s chest loosens slightly at the sight of her, a spark of warmth under all the turmoil that Alex refuses to encourage. “Oh.”

“Alex,” Lena says in greeting, her voice soft but her eyes guarded as she swirls the remains of Alex’s scotch around in the glass. “I thought you were quitting.”

“Special occasion,” Alex says, frowning as Lena tilts her head back to drain the glass. She pulls a face at the taste – Alex has been cradling it long enough that it’s more melted ice than scotch – and drops the glass back onto the bar with a thunk. Alex eyes her warily, searching for a tell, something to hint at why she’s here, but apart from the tear-smudged mascara that’s been wiped away, she looks the same as she had in her office, before Kara had stumbled back into her life like a grenade with a tentative smile.

Lena is watching her in turn, her eyes tracing over Alex’s face like she’s trying to memorise it, but neither of them speak. The silence sits between them like a physical force, building steadily until Alex can’t take it and breaks eye contact, waving two fingers at the bartender until he approaches with the bottle. Alex can feel the disapproval radiating from Lena as he refills the glass in front of her and slides another one to Alex, but Alex ignores it, avoiding her gaze as she finally breaks the silence.

“Where’s Kara?” she asks, glancing around. She half expects to see her sister hovering in the corner somewhere, but the bar is empty apart from a guy in a suit who’s been sitting in a booth since before Alex got there. He’d been bent over his phone the whole time, staring at a picture of a dark-haired woman with tears in his eyes and devastation on his face. Alex can relate.

“She’s catching up with James,” Lena says, watching Alex carefully. “She wanted to come looking for you, but I thought I’d have better luck.”

Alex can’t stop the laugh that wobbles out of her throat at that. “Trying to get lucky, are you?” she jokes weakly, taking another burning sip and keeping her gaze on the bar. Someone has scratched the beginnings of a heart into the wood, misshapen enough that it could be mistaken for the outline of Supergirl’s crest, and Alex picks at it with her thumbnail as Lena shifts beside her.

“Alex…” Lena starts, but Alex shakes her head and cuts her off.

“How did you find me?”

“You have a subdermal tracker in your arm, how do you think?” Lena answers bluntly, and it surprises Alex enough to look at her.

“You don’t have access to— Brainy told you.”

“Brainy told me,” Lena agrees, nudging her untouched glass away and resting her arms on the bar. “You weren’t answering your phone. I was worried.”

“And persuasive, apparently,” Alex mutters, turning back to the bar and already mentally drafting her lecture about the dissemination of classified intel. It probably won’t help, given the almost hero-worship level of regard Brainy has for Lena, but yelling at him feels simple, like something she can deal with.

“He owed me a favour,” Lena says, soft and cryptic, then presses two fingers to Alex’s wrist to stop her lifting her glass again.

“I’m fine,” Alex insists, though she doesn’t pull away from Lena’s touch. “You didn’t have to come looking for me.”

“I know. I wanted to,” Lena murmurs. Her eyes are back to tracing over Alex’s face, and Alex grips her glass with her free hand and steels herself to ask,

“How did she take it?”

“What?”

“Kara.”

Lena shakes her head gently. “I didn’t tell her,” she says softly, and Alex turns to look at her, surprised. “You think I’d tell your sister we’re sleeping together without you there?”

A strangled groan and the crash of breaking glass interrupt any reply Alex might have come up with, and she and Lena both turn to find the bartender lingering nearby, staring at them with lecherous surprise and the remains of the pitcher he’d been wiping in pieces at his feet.

Lena sighs sharply through her nose. “We should take this somewhere more private,” she says, eyeing the bartender icily. He shrinks under her gaze, but straightens slightly when Lena slips off her stool, picking up Alex’s helmet with one hand and tugging Alex along with the other.

“She hasn’t actually paid—” he starts, but Lena cuts him off.

“Put it on my tab, Jason,” she says without looking back, though she does slow to keep Alex upright when she stumbles after her, struggling to find her feet after drinking too much on an empty stomach.

Outside is cold and damp, but not as dark as Alex had expected. Lena stops at the edge of the covered area at the base of the stairs, suddenly enough that Alex bumps into her and has to catch herself on Lena’s hips. Lena doesn’t shy away from the contact and Alex can’t bring herself to move, leaving their bodies pressed together for a long moment. They stay like that, Alex moulded against Lena’s back with her lips dangerously close to her neck, until the crunch of gravel and soft purr of an expensive engine announces the arrival of Lena’s car. Alex steps back reluctantly as her driver ducks out of the driver’s seat and hurries around to open the back door for them.

“Hang on, George,” Lena says, turning to face Alex properly. “Where’s your bike?”

Alex frowns but gestures over to the secluded corner of the carpark where she’d left it. She hadn’t actually given much thought to how she was going to get it home once she’d finished drinking, but she doesn’t dwell on it for long before Lena speaks again.

“Good. George, please see that Director Danvers’ bike gets back to her apartment,” Lena says, handing the driver Alex’s helmet, and Alex stiffens.

“Hey, no, wait…” she starts as the driver moves to the trunk and opens it with a touch, slipping his blazer off and replacing it with an armoured riding jacket. Why Lena keeps one in the trunk of her car is a mystery, but Alex has had too much experience with her level of prepared-for-anything to be truly surprised.

“George can drive anything with an engine, Alex, I promise your bike will be fine. Give him the keys and get in the car.”

“Lena—”

“Would you rather leave it in this part of town overnight?” Lena asks, raising an eyebrow, and Alex caves, suddenly too tired and sad to argue with her. She unhooks the keys from her belt and hands them to Lena, then brushes past her to sink into the front passenger’s seat, letting her head drop against the cool glass of the window as soon as the door closes behind her.

Lena lingers outside for a moment, giving George a series of soft instructions before she moves around the car to slip behind the wheel. Alex can feel her eyes on her for a long moment, but Lena doesn’t speak. The roar of an engine behind them makes Alex lift her head, just in time to see George pull smoothly onto the street on her bike, and she twists in her seat to watch him until the taillight disappears around the corner.

“Your bike really will be fine, I promise,” Lena says, fond amusement in her voice. “George is an excellent rider.”

“I know,” Alex murmurs, sinking back into her seat as Lena finally starts the car. Neither of them speak as Lena pulls out onto the road, and for a long moment Alex lets herself sink into the soft rumble of the engine. But it’s not long before the quiet becomes too heavy, laden with the things they’re not saying, and Alex casts around for something, anything, to break the silence. She settles on, “So why did Brainy owe you a favour?”

“It’s nothing,” Lena says, but her hands tighten on the steering wheel slightly.

Alex frowns. “He broke several federal laws to repay you,” she points out, her tone no longer light. “I really doubt it was nothing.”

“I just loaned him something,” Lena says, evasive in a way she’s never been with Alex before.

“You know I can just order him to tell me, right?”

Lena sighs, slumping back in her seat and glancing at Alex before returning her gaze to the road. “A satellite. I loaned him a satellite.”

“You…what?” Alex asks, then realises. “Oh my god, that’s what he meant when he said you helped him. I thought you just worked out some of the math with him, but… You gave him a satellite?”

“Loaned, and technically it was a pair of satellites, but—”

“A pair of… You wanted Kara back that badly?” Alex asks, rapidly losing the fight with the sick feeling bubbling at the bottom of her gut. It’s not jealousy, she won’t let it be jealousy, but it’s hot and bitter and heavy on her tongue as she speaks. “You missed her enough to give a man you barely know access to a multi-million-dollar satellite array on an off chance?” Alex is aware that she’s being unfair and a little ridiculous, but the anxious voice in the back of her mind has gone from a whisper to a scream, and she’s just now realising that she might be a bit drunker than she thought. Lena is looking at her now, splitting her attention dangerously between Alex and the road, but Alex sees the moment she understands, sees the moment she works out what Alex means and shakes her head.

“Okay, no. Stop,” Lena demands, pulling the car sharply to the side of the road. The shoulder is virtually non-existent, and the car behind them honks as it swerves around them, but Lena ignores it.

“I don’t think you can park here,” Alex says, but Lena just shakes her head and unclips her seatbelt, turning to face Alex properly.

“I don’t care. Listen to me. Kara was – is – my best friend. She was the first person I met who didn’t want anything from me except _me_ , who was always willing to look past my family’s reputation and stay in my corner, even when I thought I didn’t deserve it. She was the first good thing that happened to me after Lex, and I will always be grateful to her for that.”

Alex shifts restlessly, glancing away. This speech isn’t making her feel better, and she is actively fighting the urge to bolt from the car when Lena’s fingers land on her jaw, gently turning her head until Alex meets her eye again.

“I’m telling you this so you understand me when I say that Kara is my first friend, my best friend, and I don’t want her here if it means I can’t have you.”

Alex breath catches in her throat as she freezes, transfixed by the intensity of Lena’s gaze and the way her hand has crept up to cradle Alex’s cheek.

“And that’s terrible and selfish of me, because she’s done so much for me and she’s your family, but… I love you, Alex Danvers. I love you and I want you, forever, but not as much as I want you to be happy, and you could never be truly happy without your sister.”

“Lena…” Alex breathes, unable to properly form the words to articulate the flood of warmth in her chest.

“You were drowning without her, Alex, and I knew that things between us would change if she came back but I couldn’t watch it anymore. So when Brainy and James asked me for help I gave it, gladly.” Her thumb strokes a little arc across Alex’s skin, catching the tear that’s wending its way down her face. “Please say something,” she whispers, and the ache in Alex’s chest finally gives way.

“Say it again,” she says softly, and Lena’s face breaks into a watery smile, like the sun shining through the clouds after a storm.

“I love you, Alex Danvers,” she says again, “I love you, I love you, I love—” She’s cut off by Alex tugging her forward, bringing their lips together in a kiss that feels like coming home.

They stay like that, locked together and lost in each other, until another car honks at them on its way past. They separate breathlessly, grinning, and Alex murmurs, “I really don’t think you can park here.”

Lena laughs and kisses her again, only pulling away reluctantly when they both need to breathe. She settles back into her seat and puts the car back in gear, but tangles her fingers with Alex’s as soon as her hand is free.

They drive in silence for the next few blocks, but it’s less heavy than before until Lena breaks it. “We have to tell Kara,” she says, and Alex nods.

“I know.”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Alex smiles, bringing their joined hands to her mouth to press a kiss to Lena’s knuckles. “I know,” she murmurs against her skin, surprised to realise that she believes herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and y'all thought it was kara's reaction you had to worry about. :] 
> 
> pls comment, they're like little heaters for my heart. also [tumblr at me](http://the-ominous-owl.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took forever and i have nothing to say for myself except sorry. and enjoy. and then sorry again.

**iix.**

But then it goes like this, with Alex pressed down into the back seat of Lena’s car, lips fused with Lena’s as Lena’s fingers fumble with the zip of her uniform. It’s cramped, and the parking garage of Lena’s apartment building is hardly private, but the windows of the car are well-tinted, and the aching _need_ for Lena sitting in her chest is far outweighing Alex’s comfort and caution. There’s a large part of her brain dedicated to replaying the words ‘ _I love you, Alex Danvers’_ over and over, and in the echoes of that, waiting until they get upstairs would be far too long to delay getting her hands on Lena’s skin. Alex wants to crawl into Lena’s heart and live there, wants to spend the rest of her life sinking into her warmth, but for now, pressing as much of herself against Lena as possible would do.

Alex moans softly as Lena eases the zip down, inch by inch, letting her lips trail hotly over Alex’s skin as it’s exposed. When she gets to Alex’s stomach she pauses, dipping her tongue into her navel and dragging her lips over the muscles in her abdomen, and Alex arches up against her mouth with a gasp. Lena takes the opportunity to unclasp her belt and tug it off, tossing it into the front seat before returning her hands to Alex’s skin. Her fingers slide downward, leaving trembling muscles in their wake, but even with the zip undone, Alex’s suit it too snug around her waist to allow for easy access. With a growl of frustration, Lena tugs her upright, and Alex takes advantage of it to slot their lips together again as Lena slides the material off her shoulders. She pulls it down Alex’s arms but no further, and Alex feels her wicked grin against her jaw as she folds the fabric over Alex’s hands instead, tangling them behind her.

“ _Lena_ ,” Alex gasps, arching towards her as Lena drags her hands down her abdomen. She leans forward to capture Alex’s lips in a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, swallowing the moan Alex lets out as her fingers slip under the elastic of her underwear. Lena’s phone trills from the pocket of her jacket, tossed carelessly into the front seat, and Alex freezes for a moment.

Lena just shakes her head. “Ignore it,” she murmurs, sinking her fingers into the heat of Alex’s centre, wringing a low moan from Alex’s throat. “I love you,” Lena says again, her lips and words dragging hotly over Alex’s skin. The phrase has no less impact than the first time she said it, and Alex nearly unbalances both of them when she presses forward, desperate to have as much contact with Lena as physically possible. After a brief struggle, Alex gets her arms free, leaving the top half of her suit hanging loose around her hips, and brings one hand up to cradle Lena’s face, tilting it until she can capture her lips again. The other one she wraps around the wrist between her legs, using it to keep Lena’s hand in place as she presses forward, manoeuvring them until Lena is backed against the door with Alex straddling her lap.

“Again,” Alex breathes against her lips, and Lena obliges, whispering the words over and over in time with her fingers and Alex’s rolling hips, and when Alex comes apart, it’s with Lena’s name on her lips and Lena’s voice soft in her ear.

**…**

They make it upstairs eventually, sore and sated, Alex with her belt slung over her shoulder and Lena with her jacket and heels hanging loosely from the hand not linked with Alex’s own. They manage to make it through the door to Lena’s apartment before they gravitate together again, but Lena catches Alex’s wandering hands before they get too far.

“We both need a shower,” she says, tossing her jacket over the back of the couch and nudging her heels into their proper place with her foot. “Kara’s gonna come looking for you soon, and I’d rather not have that conversation with her while we both smell like sex.”

The horrible awkwardness of that possibility is enough to freeze Alex with her lips pressed to Lena’s neck, but Lena just chuckles and tugs Alex toward her ensuite.

“Shouldn’t I…” Alex starts, gesturing towards the other bathroom, but Lena just looks at her and raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t say they had to be _separate_ showers,” she says, her voice low and her eyes glinting, and pulls Alex towards her with an almost predatory grin.

**…**

The shower takes longer than it strictly should, and they get predictably distracted by each other, so Alex is surprised when she emerges back into the living room to hear her phone ringing. It’s the tone that she’d assigned to Kohli, the head of Lena’s protection detail, and Alex reaches automatically for the pouch on her belt, confused to find it empty. The phone falls silent then starts again, and Alex follows the sound to Lena’s jacket, tossed over the back of the couch. She’d left her phone in her apartment, but Lena must have grabbed it when she and Kara were looking for her. The screen shows several missed calls and a dozen messages, and Alex frowns down at it for a moment before answering.

“Danvers.”

 _“Director,”_ Kohli starts, her tone an odd combination of relieved and nervous. “ _Ms Luthor’s whereabouts are currently unknown. Her last confirmed position was her office, but she contacted Agent Dox approximately two hours ago from another location. We’ve pinged—”_

“It’s okay, Kohli, she’s with me,” Alex cuts in, interrupting the other woman’s rapid-fire explanation. It’s a sign of how distracted Alex had been that she hadn’t noticed that Lena had arrived alone at the bar, and a knot of anxiety squirms heavily in her gut when she realises how long she’d been vulnerable.

A quiet breath of relief hisses across the line. _“I was hoping that’s where she was, but we couldn’t contact either of you. Is everything okay, Ma’am?”_

“It’s fine. We’re at her apartment,” Alex says, glancing over her shoulder to see Lena emerging from her room. It’s clear from her expression that she’s guessed who Alex is talking to, and there’s something like an apology lurking in her eyes.

 _“I’ll get Lawson and be there soon.”_ There’s a pause, then she adds softly, _“I’m sorry, Director. It won’t happen again.”_

“It’s fine, Kohli. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t your fault.,” Alex says, rubbing her eyes. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

 _“Yes Ma’am,”_ Kohli murmurs, relief clear in her tone, then hangs up.

Alex lets out a long breath and lets her phone drop back onto the couch before turning around. “Lena…”

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Lena says, putting her hands up defensively. “You weren’t answering your phone, I was worried.”

“You can’t just ditch—”

“Kara offered to fly us to your apartment,” Lena interrupts, padding softly towards her. “If I’d told Kohli I was leaving, she would’ve insisted on coming with us, and Kara would’ve asked why I had one of your agents following me around.” Lena runs a hand absently through her hair and grimaces when her fingers catch in the damp strands. “If she knew that you were worried enough to have a team on me, she wouldn’t have let me out of her sight.”

“That might not be a bad thing,” Alex points out, earning herself an eye-roll.

“Kara left Morgan Edge in the middle of the ocean for making a thinly veiled _suggestion_ of a threat. Where do you think she would’ve put Greyson if she found out?” Lena says, unable to keep the fond exasperation off her face. “You putting him in a cell would’ve been bad enough, I don’t even want to think about the fallout if an alien vigilante kidnaps him.”

Alex frowns. “Kara isn’t a vigilante.”

“No, but that’s how his supporters would frame it,” Lena says, reaching up to brush an errant strand of hair from Alex’s face. “Kara is probably the only person with any chance of calming them down, but that’ll go out the window if she goes after Greyson because of a personal grudge.”

“A justified grudge,” Alex mutters, then sighs. As much as she hates the idea of Lena being alone and vulnerable, there is logic in what she’s saying. “You’re right.”

 “I usually am,” she says with a cheeky smile, leaning in to press a quick kiss against the corner of Alex’s mouth, and Alex hooks an arm around her waist to stop her stepping back.

“Is that right?” Alex asks, and Lena shifts forward, winding her arms around Alex’s neck and pressing herself against her with a smile that Alex can feel against her lips.

“Mmhmm. I’m very talented.” Lena’s tone is low and inviting, and her body is warm and solid in Alex’s arms. They stay like that, twined together and trading lazy kisses until Lena’s phone chimes from somewhere behind them. Lena sighs against Alex’s skin and steals one more kiss, but Alex tightens her arms around her waist when she tries to shift away.

“Hey,” Alex says softly, dropping her head until their foreheads are pressed together. “Don’t ditch your protection again.”

“Don’t disappear on me again,” Lena counters, just as softly. “I know you need time alone sometimes, but just… tell me where you are. Please.”

“I’ll try,” Alex whispers, and Lena nods.

“So will I.” She kisses Alex again, soft but sincere, then steps back out of her arms to retrieve her phone.

Alex has to physically stop herself from chasing the warmth of her, but she’s glad she does when Lena speaks again.

“James says that Kara just left,” she says, flicking through her messages. “She’ll be here any second.”

Alex looks at her with wide eyes, suddenly entirely unprepared for the reality of the conversation they’re about to have. She’d been distracted enough by _I love you, Alex Danvers_ that Kara had momentarily slipped her mind, but she doesn’t have much time to panic about it properly before there’s a soft knock on the balcony door.

“It’s unlocked!” Lena calls, shooting Alex a reassuring smile before Kara breezes into the room.

Alex barely has time to register her sister’s arrival in a blur of colour before Kara barrels into her and Alex finds herself wrapped in a tight hug. Kara is slightly damp from her trips through the drizzly afternoon sky, but she’s warm and solid and _here_ , and Alex has missed her sister’s hugs enough that she can tolerate getting a little wet.

“Alex, are you okay?” Kara asks, stepping back to peer at Alex searchingly.

Alex nods, covering Kara’s hands with her own where they rest on her shoulders. “I’m okay, I just… I’m okay.”

Kara eyes her for a long moment before nodding and dropping her hands, turning instead to sweep a startled Lena up into a hug.

“James told me the two of you broke up,” Kara says, and Lena’s face does something complicated over Kara’s shoulder where she can’t see. “I’m so sorry.”

“I—Thank you. It was a while ago, and I’ve…There’s…” Lena fumbles, glancing over at Alex beseechingly as Kara steps back, this time to look at Lena with curious eyes. Lena isn’t usually that tongue-tied, but under the circumstances, Alex can understand her hesitancy.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks, and Alex steps forward.

“Kara, it’s just… I… After you left, we…. There was this one… James asked, but I…”

Kara tils her head, frowning at Alex’s babbling, but just as she opens her mouth to speak, her eyes go wide and her head whips around to face the windows. Alex follows her gaze automatically, but can’t see what has Kara so startled until the windows rattle sharply, followed rapidly by the dull thud of a distant explosion.

Lena and Alex share a wide-eyed glance, then the three of them rush to the window in unison, just in time to see a dark plume of smoke creep up into the darkening sky.

Beside her, Lena inhales sharply and reaches blindly for Alex. “That’s at L-Corp. Alex, that’s—”

“Are you sure?” Alex asks, but even as she says it, she can see the rigid set of Kara’s shoulders as she turns back to face them.

“Where’s my suit?”

“At my apartment, in the back of my closet.” Kara’s apartment was mostly as she left it, but Alex had gone through two days after she left and removed any trace of Supergirl living there. The chances of anyone finding any of it were slim, but Alex didn’t want to run the risk of an opportunistic burglar stumbling over it. Her faith in Kara coming back had wavered more than once, but she’d still ensured her sister’s life on Earth remained intact if she wanted to return to it.

Kara vanishes out the balcony door in a blur of colour, and Alex calls after her, “Come back and get me first! Don’t go alone!”

“I’m coming too,” Lena says, but Alex rounds on her, already shaking her head.

“Not a chance.”

“It’s my building—”

“I don’t care, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know what happened. If it’s targeted at you, I’m not taking you to the scene.”

“They’re _my people,_ Alex! I can’t—”

“I know,” Alex whispers, stepping forward until she can press her forehead against Lena’s. “I’ll take care of them, I promise. But I have to go be in charge right now, and I can’t be in charge if I’m worrying about you. Please, just until I know it’s safe.”

Lena’s hand creeps onto her cheek, and her shaky exhale washes over Alex’s skin.

“If it was an accident I’ll send Kara to get you,” Alex promises, shifting backwards and putting her hands on Lena’s shoulders. “Please, Lena. Just until I’m sure.”

“Alex…” Lena starts, but she’s interrupted by the thud of boots landing on the balcony.

Alex drops her hands from Lena’s shoulders and turns, expecting to find Kara. Instead, her breath catches in her throat in a gasp, echoed by Lena beside her, because the figure that strides through the door isn’t Kara.

It’s Supergirl.

Supergirl, backlit by the last of setting sun that’s apparently forced its way through the clouds just for this moment, shining through her hair and lending her a halo of golden fire. Supergirl, stepping forward into the apartment, radiating power in the grace of her movement and the sway of her cape. Supergirl, looking every inch the hero, returned from far-off stars to set right what is wrong. Seeing her again is like hearing a half-remembered lullaby, soothing in a way Alex didn’t realise she’d been missing, and with it comes an almost overwhelming sense of comfort, the feeling that even as the world collapses around them, it would be okay.

Then Supergirl blinks at them, glancing down at her suit and saying, “What? It still fits,” and the illusion is broken. She’s just Kara again, frowning at them in confusion as they both stare at her, and Alex is struck by an intense desire to hug her.

She resists, though only because Kara steps forward, offering Alex her gun and holster. “C’mon, we gotta go.”

“Lena, stay here and wait for Kohli. I mean it,” Alex says as she threads her holster onto her belt and checks her weapon.

“I…”

“ _Please_ , Lena. Promise me.”

“I’ll stay,” Lena finally sighs, though she looks deeply unhappy about it. “Stay safe, both of you.”

There’s more Alex wants to say, more she wants to tell her, but Kara’s arm is settling low around her waist and Alex only has a second to wind her arm around her sister’s shoulders before she pulls both of them into the sky.

**…**

L-Corp is a mess, the square out the front strewn with rubble and a gaping hole in the building where the front doors used to be. All the glass within three floors is either cracked or shattered, and there’s a growing group of onlookers milling around the edges of the plaza, held back by shaken-looking security guards. The power in the building seems to be out, and most of the lights at street level are broken, leaving the whole scene shrouded by shadows, illuminated only by the flashing lights of the still-arriving emergency services and dancing flashlights of Lena’s security.

Alex takes all of this in as Kara swoops low and drops onto the plaza. There’s a sense of barely-controlled chaos to the scene, with employees evacuating the building in a somewhat-orderly fashion and the L-Corp security apparently in control but mostly directionless. The chaos on the ground combined with the darkness means that their arrival goes mostly unnoticed, and they both take a moment to survey the scene before moving.

“I’m gonna make sure nobody’s trapped,” Kara says, squeezing Alex’s shoulder briefly before launching herself back into the dark sky. Alex watches her go until she disappears into the darkness, then turns back to the plaza. She starts forward, searching for the centre of the whirlwind of people. If the head of Lena’s security isn’t there, Alex hopes she’ll at least find someone in charge.

She’s most of the way to what remains of the doors, where most of the activity seems to be, when she catches her name out of the noise of the crowd.

“Director Danvers!”

Alex turns, and it takes her a second to pick out Cortez – one of the agents she’d assigned to Lena – weaving towards her through the crowd.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, reaching automatically for the trickle of blood at his hairline.

He waves her off. “It’s just a scratch. Is Ms Luthor safe?”

Alex nods, warmed by the obviously genuine concern in his tone. “She’s at her apartment, Kohli and Lawson are on their way there now. What happened here?”

“Not sure. Agent Kohli told me to wait here while she and the others went looking for Ms Luthor. I was going over the security footage to see if I could work out how she’d got past us, but without the cameras in her office I couldn’t find much.”

Alex flushes, grateful the low light hides it from her agent. The reason Lena had disabled those cameras was almost entirely due to Alex’s penchant for showing up unannounced and bending Lena over her desk, and while she’d been doing that a lot less in recent weeks, Lena obviously hadn’t got around to turning them back on.

 “I was just giving up when one of the guards on the front desk hit his alarm button,” Cortez continues, oblivious to Alex’s embarrassment. “There was someone running across the plaza towards the doors with something in his hands. He was apparently yelling something about earth traitors and then whatever he had exploded.”

“Earth traitors?” Kara asks, swooping down to stand beside Alex.

“It’s Timothy Greyson’s favourite catchphrase lately,” Alex says, ignoring the way Cortez is blinking at Kara. “He’s been yelling it at everyone who doesn’t agree with him for weeks now.”

“James told me about the protests, but I had no idea it was this bad,” Kara says, sounding sad. Alex can see guilt and pain in her eyes, and reaches over to squeeze her hand.

“It’s not your fault,” she says softly, and Kara smiles at her weakly but takes a breath and nods. “How’s it looking?”

“Everyone got out, and there aren’t that many injuries. The building itself is structurally sound. There’s actually not that much damage, beyond the obvious. Whatever they used was big and flashy, but not very powerful.”

Alex frowns. There’s a little niggling feeling deep in her gut, a little voice in the back of her brain telling her that something isn’t right. There’s something off about the whole situation, something they’re missing, but before Alex can chase the thought down, her attention is drawn back to the crowd at the edge of the plaza by the tinkle of shattering glass.

What she sees surprises her. The crowd has swelled considerable, going from maybe thirty people when she and Kara landed to almost eighty now, and their mood has gone from curious to ugly.

“They deserved this, Earth Traitors!” a voice calls from the midst of the group, and another bottle shatters on the pavement in front of the line of guards holding them back.

“Supergirl,” Alex starts, but Kara has already taken to the air, swooping down to catch a third bottle in mid-air and drawing gasps and exclamations from the crowd.

“Supergirl’s back!” the same voice calls, igniting a cheer. “She won’t stand for these Earth Traitors spewing their poison!”

“Should we help her?” Cortez asks, drawing Alex’s attention away from Kara’s reply, but she can see from the expression on her sister’s face that she’s gearing up for one of her hope speeches. Alex gives her a better than half chance of calming them, particularly if she can silence the idiot loudmouth, and tunes her out.

“No, she’ll be fine. You need to get that checked out,” Alex tells him, pointing towards the cut on his forehead that’s still bleeding sluggishly.

“I’m fine, boss. Honest—” he starts, but Alex shakes her head.

“You might have a concussion. EMTs are over there. Go.”

Cortez sighs but deflates, turning to follow her pointed finger, and Alex watches him move through the crowd until she’s certain he’s heading toward the responding medics before she turns back towards the building. The area around the front doors is littered with shattered glass, and Alex pokes through it carefully. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for, but she knows she doesn’t find it. There’s very little debris, the concrete is cracked but not badly, and there aren’t many signs of shrapnel damage around the blast site. It’s the oddest bombing site Alex has ever looked at, and that little voice in the back of her head is getting louder, repeating insistently that there’s something she’s missing.

Alex turns slowly in place, taking in every part of the scene. The shattered windows but largely undamaged building, the roaring crowd that wasn’t actually trying to get past the line of guards even before Kara appeared, the lack of any follow-up attacks. None of it makes sense. A bomb, even a small one, would’ve done far more damage inside the building, and a bomber with even a hint of an excuse could’ve got in a least as far as reception. Setting it off outside is the least effective thing he could’ve done. Unless damage wasn’t the point, but then what was?

The boom, Alex realises. The big, attention-getting boom that screamed as loudly as possible that the building was under attack.

The thought – and the curl of dread that comes with it – makes her turn, forcing her way back through the press of security and responders until she finds Cortez. He’s sitting on the back step of an ambulance, getting his head poked at by a harried-looking EMT, but he looks up as she approaches.

“What was the game plan?” Alex asks without preamble, and he blinks up at her, confused. “If Lena had been in her office, where she was supposed to be, when this happened, what was the plan?”

“Remove her to the nearest secure location.”

“Which is?”

“Her apartment. Or headquarters, if her apartment’s compromised.”

It’s a simple, straightforward plan, and exactly what Alex would’ve done in their place. It’s also not hard to predict, which means that whoever had bombed L-Corp would’ve have a reasonable chance of guessing the outcome. But what was the point? A big, loud explosion that doesn’t do any real damage, and only results in Lena being vulnerable for the short time it would take to move her from her office to her apartment. It doesn’t make sense, unless…

“The second location is compromised. The explosion was a distraction,” Alex breathes, horror dawning on her slowly. “It’s a set-up. _Fuck,_ it’s a set-up!” She whirls to face Cortez, pushing the EMT to the side. “I need your keys.”

“Set-up?” Cortez echoes, confused, but passes her the keys to his SUV anyway.

“Call Kohli, tell her she’s got hostiles incoming. Tell her I’m on my way,” Alex calls over her shoulder, already forcing her way back through the crowd. She glances over at Kara, where she’s landed on a low wall to address the rapt crowd. She’s still speaking, gesturing expansively toward her audience, and even the #earthfirst plants that Alex suspects are among them are almost entranced by her. Alex keeps running. She can’t pull Supergirl away from that on a hunch, even if it is sending sparks of panicked certainty along her spine.

Alex bolts to the car and throws herself into the driver’s seat, tearing out of the carpark far faster than was safe. She speeds through the streets towards Lena’s building, weaving between other cars with her knuckles white around the steering wheel. She pushes the car and her driving abilities to the limit. She makes the trip in record time.

She’s still too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY AGAIN. the next chapter was going to also be this chapter but it was taking me too long to write so you get this and my deepest apologies for the cliffy. one more chapter then epilogue and we're doneeeee
> 
> pls come [yell at me.](http://the-ominous-owl.tumblr.com) i totally deserve it.
> 
> also comment. they are hugs for my feels.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay NOW there's one more chapter then an epilogue cos this one got away from me a lot. i'm only sort of sorry.

**ix.**

So it goes like this, with Alex pulling the borrowed car haphazardly up across the sidewalk and bolting into Lena’s building to find the lobby empty. Completely empty, of even the doorman who sometimes retreats just inside the door until he’s needed, and it’s enough to have Alex pulling her gun from its holster as she crosses to the elevator. The trip up seems to take longer than usual, and Alex forces herself not to fidget, trying desperately to supress the seeds of panic curling in her gut. She presses herself against the panel next to the door as the elevator dings its arrival to Lena’s floor, waiting a beat before peering cautiously out towards Lena’s apartment.

The door is open, exposing the scorch marks on the wall beyond, and the sight of it sends a flood of adrenaline through Alex’s veins. Up until that moment she’d been hoping desperately that she’s wrong, but actual, physical damage to Lena’s home confirms her worse fears. It’s only her training that keeps her creeping towards the apartment slowly, when every fibre of her being is urging her to rush forward, yelling Lena’s name. Panic is clawing at her throat, making her hands shake and squeezing at her heart, but Alex has had years of practise forcing it down. She presses it into a little box, and pushes that box as far back in her mind as possible because she cannot afford to break down now, even if the fear is wailing in her ear that this is something she can’t fix.

Alex pauses just outside the door, listening intently, but the apartment is silent except for the pounding of her heart in her ears. She eases through the door, gun first, creeping slowly into the living room. It’s dark, lit only by the reflected glow from the city through the windows, and Alex knows better than to turn the light on without first clearing the apartment. Even in the dark, she can see the room is a mess, showing clear signs of a fight, and there are more scorch marks on the wall, evidence of gunfire from the energy pistols that had replaced conventional weapons as standard issue for DEO agents.

Among the remains of the broken furniture there are two oddly-shaped lumps, and Alex is almost on top of them when the smaller one moans softly and she realises that they’re bodies. Three people, two locked together and deathly still and another slightly further away, breathing in shallow, laboured gasps, and Alex’s grip on her panic slips for just a moment as she rushes towards them.

She pauses just long enough to determine that neither of the two unmoving figures are Lena, pushing down the flash of relief and wave of guilt that comes with the confirmation, then falls to her knees beside the remaining body, rolling her gently onto her back.

It’s Kohli, her face pale and smeared with blood from a gash in her forehead, and while she groans softly as Alex moves her, her eyes don’t open.

“Kohli! Kohli, open your eyes. C’mon, Kohli, wake up,” Alex calls, shaking her agent lightly until her eyelids flutter. “That’s it! Hey, c’mon Kohli. Open your eyes.”

“D’rect’r…” Kohli slurs, blinking groggily up at her. She reaches up towards Alex with a trembling hand, and Alex catches it gently. Her sleeve is ripped open, exposing a long, thin cut running the length of her forearm, and there’s an odd greenish tinge to it that tugs at something in Alex’s memory, but Kohli speaks again before she can work out why. “Took L’th’r. S’not human. Wasn’t…” She trails off, her hand going limp in Alex’s grip and her eyes sliding closed again.

Kohli? Kohli, c’mon. C’mon! Kara! _Kara!_ ” Alex isn’t fully aware she’s yelling for her sister until she appears beside her in a rush of air, skidding to a stop to drop down beside her.

“Alex? What happened? Where’s Lena?” Kara asks, her tone laced with the same panic that Alex can feel building in her stomach.

“Someone took her. You have to get Kohli back to the DEO. Tell Vas to send everyone.” Kara hesitates, scanning the apartment warily, but Alex shove at her. “Quickly! Go!”

“I’ll come back. We’ll find her,” Kara promises, squeezing Alex’s shoulder before she gathers the unconscious agent against her chest and speeds away.

As Kara disappears out the balcony door, Alex crawls over to check Lawson. He’s pinned down under the other body, his eyes open and fixed on the ceiling, and although Alex knows what she’s going to find when she fumbles at his wrist, it still hits her hard in the gut when her fingers land on his pulse point and feel nothing. Forcing down the sob that’s clawing at her throat, Alex shoves the body off her agent, rolling them apart and reaching over to close Lawson’s eyes with a murmured apology.

Looking at him is lending strength to the guilt mixing with the panic in her stomach, so Alex turns her attention to the other body. His face is familiar, even in the dim light, but it takes Alex a second to recognise him as one of Timothy Greyson’s inner circle, a group consisting of his most fanatical followers. He’s also dead, but as Alex is feeling his wrist for his pulse, her fingers hit an odd rough patch. She frowns and squints down at his arm, but the room is too dark to make out what she’s touching, so she stumbles to her feet and towards the light switch, flicking it on and throwing the chaos of the room into sharp relief.

Under the warm light, it’s easier to work out what happened. Lawsons’s gun is still clenched in his fist, and his assailant’s torso is a mess of burns and scorch marks. The new weapons were classed as non-lethal, but evidently unloading most of a power cell point-blank into a person’s abdomen was enough to get the job done. It’s less clear what killed her agent, but as Alex crouches down beside him again, she spots something odd at his throat. Closer inspection reveals two stingers, identical to the one she’d pulled from her shoulder at the protest weeks ago, pierced into his neck.

Confused, Alex shifts back towards to the other body. She runs her fingers over his wrist again and finds the same rough patch she’d felt before, and closer examination under the light reveals a slit at the base of each of his palms where the stingers had been. Frowning, Alex leans over to peel his eyelid back, revealing eyes that are yellow and slitted and definitely not human.

Alex rocks back on her heels, frowning. An alien working for Greyson makes no sense, but the facts all point to him being behind the abduction. The #earthfirst protestors at L-Corp, the bomber yelling about earth traitors right before the device went off, Greyson’s threats against Lena. If it is a set-up, designed to shift blame to him, it’s one of the most thorough that Alex has seen.

But neither scenario bodes well for Lena, and that knowledge is burning, hot and bitter, in Alex’s gut, pushing her to sag back against the wall. Alone but for the agent she’d failed and the alien he’d taken with him, Alex gives in to the sob clawing at her throat, choking out an apology to Lawson, to Kohli, to Lena. She gives in to the panic, the abject terror beating in her chest where her heart used to be. She gives in to the desperation burning in her gut, curling her knees up to her chest as the wail of approaching sirens echo up from the streets, almost but not quite drowning out the roaring in her ears.

**…**

“It’s Greyson.”

“Alex…” Kara starts, her hands twitching at her side like she wants to stop Alex stepping away from her, but after a quick glance at the agents watching them, she stops herself. Alex had managed to force herself back to functional by the time the first DEO responders had swept in, followed closely by the NCPD, but had lasted less than five minutes of watching her agents pick carelessly through Lena’s life. Kara had returned to the apartment to find her on the balcony, gazing out over the city with a sort of brittle, fractured calm, and had immediately offered to take her home. Alex had talked her into flying them both to the DEO instead, largely through refusing any other offer, and Kara had acquiesced only reluctantly.

“It’s him, Kara. I’m sure,” Alex insists, stalking down the stairs and towards the ops centre with Kara close behind her. Alex’s hands are shaking despite her efforts to still them, and her heart is twisting in her chest with every beat. There’s a bottle of bourbon in her office, well-hidden and mostly full, and the siren’s call of the numb oblivion it offers is a constant tug at the back of Alex’s mind.

“How? How are you so certain?”

“He’s been sending her threats. That’s why I had agents with her,” Alex mumbles, trying and failing to dodge the hand that Kara lays on her shoulder.

“Alex! Why didn’t you tell me?” Kara asks, spinning Alex around to face her. Her face is a mix of concern and disappointment that scrapes at Alex’s already-fragile composure, and she twists out from under her hand with a scowl.

“You’ve been back for twelve hours, Kara, there’s a lot I haven’t told you,” Alex snaps, whirling back towards the ops centre. She still hasn’t told Kara about her relationship with Lena, and there’s a little voice in the back of her head that’s whispering that it’s moot now anyway, that if they never get Lena back it won’t matter what Kara did or didn’t know. Telling her now feels wrong, like she’d be tempting an already bleak fate, and Alex can’t bring herself to confess to Kara that she’s in love with her best friend before she tells Lena herself. It had hit her at some point in the apartment, surrounded by the chaos of her failure, that she’s never actually said the words. She’d never told Lena that she loved her, and while she knows, deep in her heart, that Lena is aware, the fact that she’s never said it out loud is curling deep in her gut.

“Alex…” Kara starts, reaching towards her again, but a voice from the ops centre interrupts whatever she’s about to say.

“Director, I believe I have something,” Brainy calls, and Alex hurries over to his station, Kara close behind her, leaning down to see his screen. He’s been going over CCTV footage, and as Brainy taps at the keyboard to rewind and replay his discovery, Alex recognises the lobby of Lena’s apartment building. “This is Agents Kohli and Lawson arriving,” he says as two figures cross the screen to enter the elevator. Alex’s hand tightens on the back of Brainy’s chair at the sight of her two agents, one now dead and the other gravely injured, but she forces it down.

Later. She can break down later.

“Then, approximately five minutes later, these four come in through the front,” Brainy continues, politely ignoring the way Alex’s knuckles have gone white around the edge of his desk. “They speak briefly with the doorman, and he hands the tallest one something then leaves the building. He does not return, as far as I can tell. The four then take the elevator up to the penthouse floor. They remain there for approximately fifteen minutes, then the elevator goes down to the second basement level.” He taps his keyboard again, bringing up the camera for the parking garage. The three of them watch as the elevator doors slide open to reveal four figures, two of them carrying a third while the fourth one limps behind them. All three of the ambulatory figures show signs of injury, and Alex feels a vicious sort of pride in her agents, who – even outnumbered – had clearly put up a fight. The figures inch further into frame until one of them staggers, tilting a drooping head onto his shoulder until he rights himself.

“It’s Lena,” Alex breathes as the unconscious figure moves just enough to reveal her face to the camera. Alex’s heart aches at the damage clear on her skin and the dark streaks of blood across her face, but Kara squeezes her shoulder gently.

“Look, she’s moving. She’s alive,” Kara murmurs, reaching down to loosen Alex’s white-knuckled hold on the desk.

Alex sucks in a shaky breath and nods, forcing the storm in her chest down until she can look at the screen without wailing.

“Brainy, can you go back to the lobby camera when they come in?” she asks, and Brainy obliges, switching cameras and jumping back to the right timestamp. “There,” Alex mutters, tapping the screen. “The doorman obviously knows them. He gives them something; probably the override key to the elevator.”

“He could probably get his hands on the access code to her apartment, too,” Kara says, and Alex straightens, shoving herself away from the desk and clenching her hands.

“Find him, Brainy. Now.”

**…**

The doorman flinches as the black bag is pulled roughly off his head, and he blinks and squints with red eyes around in the harsh light. Alex watches him from the other side of the table he’s chained to, working to keep the anger burning through her veins off her face. She’s seen this man almost every day for the better part of a year, but this is the first time she’s spared him more than a passing glance. He looked like the textbook definition of an aging family man – middle-aged, slightly overweight, hints of grey streaking through thinning hair – and right now, he was in the unfortunate position of being the only person Alex had to take her anger out on.

“Where am I?” he asks, looking between Alex, seated across from him, fully armed and armoured, and Cortez and Fischer, the remaining members of Lena’s protection detail, who are flanking her.

“You are Donald Hudson,” Alex says, forcing as much dispassion into her tone as she can. “Your wife is Mary Hudson. You have two sons, Jacob and Liam Hudson. You wife takes them to school every morning at eight-fifteen before going to her job as a secretary at Preston Accounting.”

“You? You’re Ms Luthor’s… guest. What are you doing?” Donald demands, his vision obviously clear enough that he’s recognised Alex. 

“Your mother, Janet Hudson, lives in Metropolis. She plays bingo two nights a week at the community centre three blocks down from her apartment,” Alex continues, reciting the information that Brainy is feeding her through her earpiece. “I am telling you this, Mr Hudson, so you understand that if you lie to me, if you obstruct or hide the truth, I have a thousand different ways to make you regret it.”

“You can’t hold me like this. I’ve done nothing wrong,” he spits, clenching his hands into fists that don’t quite disguise how badly they’re shaking.

“Luckily for you, I only have one, simple question,” Alex continues, ignoring his protests. “Where is Lena Luthor?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but understanding glints in his eyes. He knows something.

“Earlier tonight, you gave Timothy Greyson and three of his fanatics access to her apartment. In the course of abducting her, they killed a member of her protection detail and gravely injured another.” Hudson’s eyes go wide when she says that, but narrow again as she continues, “If you tell me where they took her, now, I won’t hold you responsible for that.”

“It had nothing to do with me. I didn’t give anyone access to anything and I don’t know Timothy Greyson.”

 _“He’s lying,”_ Kara says in her earpiece, and Alex glances up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling and nods slightly.

“We’ve got you on camera, Donald. Just tell us where they took her and this whole thing goes away.”

Hudson just glares at her across the table, his eyes flitting between her and the agents behind her, and Alex sighs and changes tack.

“You know, she would’ve matched whatever Greyson offered you,” Alex says conversationally. Lena had told Alex once that the quickest way to ensure loyalty was to buy it. She’d made an open offer to all her employees, saying that she’d match or beat any bribe they were offered if they identified the source, using her ability to out-spend just about anyone else on the planet to her full advantage. “If you’d gone to her when he approached you, you’d be a rich man by now.”

“Like I’d take that earth traitor’s money,” he spits, and Alex closes her eyes and sighs.

“I see,” she says levelly, opening her eyes to see Hudson watching her in smug silence. “The hard way, then. Break his legs.”

“What? No, wait!” Hudson yelps, the smugness gone from his face. “You can’t!”

 _“Alex!”_ Kara hisses in her ear as the two agents behind her move around the table. “ _Alex, don’t!”_

Alex shoots a glance up at the camera, but as Cortez yanks the chair out from under him, forcing Hudson to kneel awkwardly with his hands still chained to the table, Kara pushes her way through the door.

“Supergirl!” Hudson gasps as Kara crosses the room in a blur to catch the wrists of the two agents, pulling them gently away. “Supergirl, help me!”

“Supergirl, get out,” Alex says tightly, pushing herself to her feet and glaring at her sister. Kara is frowning at her, disappointment in her eyes, and something in Alex breaks. A hollow sort of desperation floods her chest, and judging from her face, Kara can see it in her eyes. “ _Get out,_ ” she snarls, wet and rough, but Kara just motions for Cortez and Fischer to wait and takes her hand, pulling an unresisting Alex out into the deserted hallway.

“You can’t torture him, Alex,” she murmurs. “Lena wouldn’t want that.”

“He knows where she is,” Alex hisses, struggling to keep a lid on the desperation swirling in her stomach. It’s the kind of panic she’s used to after four years of being Supergirl’s sister, listening from the wrong end of a commlink as Kara threw herself repeatedly into danger; a sort of frustrated, terrified helplessness that never gets any easier to deal with. “They could be hurting her and he knows where she is and he’s laughing about it, Kara.”

“I know,” Kara says softly, compassion swirling in her eyes. “But you can’t just beat it out of him.”

“ _I can try!_ ” Alex snaps, surprised to find her hands are shaking and she’s breathing hard.

“Alex…” Kara starts, her face twisted into a concerned frown as she reaches for Alex’s shoulder carefully.

“I just… I need her. I need her back, Kara. I _need_ …” Alex trails off, her voice cracking in her throat, and Kara folds her into a hug that Alex can’t bring herself to resist. She warm and solid and _there_ , after so long, and Alex’s hands come up to rest under her cape, clutching at her suit as she struggles to contain the sob building in her chest. She can’t break down yet, because Lena is still out there and she needs to focus, and as much as she wants to, letting herself dissolve into her sister’s arms feels like an indulgence she can’t afford. Alex presses her closed eyes tightly against Kara’s shoulder and draws a shuddering breath, steeling herself and stepping back.

Kara lets her go, but keeps her hands on her shoulders, ducking her head to gaze at her for a long moment with an inscrutable expression before she exhales slowly. “Okay. Just… let me try first,” she says softly, pressing her forehead against Alex’s. “Let me try, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll leave. I’ll leave and you can do… whatever you feel you need to, okay?”

Alex draws in a shaky breath and nods slowly, earning herself a soft smile.

“It’s gonna be okay, Alex,” Kara says softly, squeezing her hand gently as Alex wipes at her eyes. “C’mon.”

Alex takes a moment to steel herself and put her Scary Government Agent mask back on before she follows Kara back into the room. Hudson is still kneeling on the floor, and Kara moves to crouch down next to him as Alex presses herself against the wall with her arms folded, watching them carefully. Cortez and Fischer join her, leaning on either side of her as Kara murmurs softly to the shaking man. He watches Supergirl with hope in his eyes, but as she talks that hope dims, and he begins shaking his head every few seconds.

It feels like hours, but it’s probably only five minutes later when Kara sighs and climbs back to her feet, looking down at the doorman with a disappointed frown before turning to the door.

“I tried,” she says with a shrug, and Hudson stiffens. He can’t see the way Kara’s eyes are squeezed shut, the way her mouth is moving in a silent plea, but Alex can, and it tightens the fist around her heart even as she and her agents push themselves off the wall and move towards Hudson.

“Wait, wait, don’t leave me here!” Hudson calls after her, sounding terrified. “Supergirl, wait! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you!”

Kara pauses on her way out, letting out a tiny, relieved breath before she turns back to look at him. “Everything?”

“Yes, yes, just don’t leave me here, please!”

“Get him up,” Alex growls, leaning over the table as Cortez pulls Hudson to his feet and Fischer forces the chair back under him. “Where’s Lena?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and Alex scowls at him.

“Cortez, break his finger.”

“No, wait, wait! I don’t know for sure!” Alex holds up a hand to stop Cortez with his hand wrapped around Hudson’s pinky, then waves for Hudson to keep talking. “They were talking about making sure the warehouse was empty, and Mr Greyson had us meet at the old shipyards once. That’s all I know, I swear!”

“Why did he take her?”

“Mr Greyson said with her money and tech, we’d be unstoppable. He said she just needed a little more convincing. I didn’t know they were gonna hurt anyone, I swear.” He’s crying in earnest now, tears sliding over red cheeks, but Alex finds herself unmoved. “We just wanted to make sure the aliens couldn’t take over. They don’t belong here, surely you can understand.”

Alex can’t help her snort of derision when Kara shifts her weight and folds her arms, tilting her head as Hudson’s eyes go wide.

“I don’t mean you, Supergirl, I mean the other aliens. The dangerous—”

“Save it,” Alex snaps, turning her back on him and heading for the door. “Dump him in a cell until I get back.”

“No, no, wait!” he calls after her, but Alex leaves the room without looking back.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks, following her down the hallway towards the ops centre. Her hand brushes Alex’s shoulder, but Alex dodges the contact. Her grip on the broken, wailing thing in her chest is too tenuous, too fragile, and she knows if she gives in the comfort Kara is offering, she’ll shatter.

“I’m fine,” she says instead, not meeting her gaze, and while she can feel Kara’s eyes on her back, she doesn’t speak.

“Director,” Brainy calls from in front of the wall monitor as soon as they’re in view. “I’ve determined three possible locations based on Mr Hudson’s information. I believe this one is the most probable hideout.” He highlights a large warehouse on the waterfront with a wave of his hand. “The other two have regular security or police patrols due to a history of drug activity, but this one is too isolated to attract much attention. Additionally, the owner of record traces back to one of Greyson’s many shell companies.”

“I’ve already scrambled the tac-team, they’re gonna be out the door in ten minutes,” Vasquez says from Brainy’s other side, but Alex shakes her head.

“Brainy, are you sure this is the place?”

“There is a certainty of approximately—” He stops as Alex glares at him, then nods sharply. “As sure as is possible, yes.”

“Okay. Kara, let’s go.”

“Director, wait—”

“There’s no time, Vas! Send the team in after us, but we need to go now.”

“Supergirl, wait. Wait and go in with the tac-team, please,” Vasquez pleads, but Kara just looks between her and Alex for a long moment before opening her arms.

Alex is too wrung out to grin, but her face twists into something resembling a smile as she steps into her sister’s arms.

“Tuck you head in, I’m gonna go fast,” Kara murmurs to her, giving Alex the perfect excuse to bury her head in her shoulder as she lifts off, swooping out through the sky door as behind them, Vasquez swears and starts yelling orders.

It’s stopped raining, but the night air is still cold enough that Alex has to suppress a shiver as they arc up over the city. Kara has her cape wrapped around Alex as best she can, protecting her from the worst of the wind-chill, but Alex finds that the cold is actually helping. The raging storm of turmoil in her chest has an outlet now; the wailing, directionless fury replaced by layers of training, adrenaline and a terrible, crystalline purpose. Alex forces everything she’s feeling behind a wall until all that’s left is icy, single-minded clarity, her heart safely caged away and her fear left abandoned up in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment. i love you.


End file.
